Kampala — Uganda is to host the sixteenth Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) summit scheduled for November this year, country's minister of trade and cooperatives Amelia Kyambadde has announced.
"Uganda is ready to host to host the summit and we shall welcome all member states of the COMESA region to the East African country this year," she said.
She made the announcement at a meeting of permanent secretaries and senior officials from Ministries of Trade and Industry in the region who met in Lusaka recently and discussed various developments regarding trade and the implementation of the COMESA Customs Union.
A statement issued by the COMESA secretariat said that the Secretary-General, Sindiso Ngwenya, used the occasion to re-emphasize the importance of having a working Customs Union and regional integration.
"The COMESA Customs Union was launched in June 2009 with a three-year transition period during which Member States were supposed to implement key instruments," he said.
Mr. Ngwenya revealed the implementation scoreboard of the member states that was considered by the Ministerial Task Force earlier this year was not at all encouraging as it indicates little or no implementation of key instruments.
"We now need to find a formula to realise the Customs Union or alternatively how to proceed with our regional integration," Mr Ngwenya said.
"The more countries integrate the more they coordinate their policies and the more individual nations share their policy making powers.
The current Euro zone fiscal challenge is a development that is shocking the system but one for which ways to deal with it will be found."
SOURCE: AllAfrica