By CHARITY MOONGA –

THE Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and other regional economic bodies will soon launch the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) to boost trade among African countries.
COMESA director of trade Fudzai Pamacheche said the CFTA will follow the recent launch of the Tripartite  Free Trade Area during the Tripartite Heads of State and Governments Summit on June 10 2015 in the Egyptian city of Sharm El Sheikh.
The CFTA, will be one of the largest trade economic bloc in the African continent and will create a single continental market for goods and services, with free movement of business people and investments.
It will also help bring closer the Continental Customs Union and the African Common Market and turn the 54 single African economies into a more coherent, larger market.
The larger, more viable economic space will allow African markets to function better and promote competition, as well as resolve the challenge of multiple and overlapping regional economic blocs thereby boost trade.
Mr Pamecheche said that the CFTA is set to build on the Tripartite FTA negotiations, and would create a free trade area among the 26 countries of the East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
“A continental FTA is coming soon to assist boost trade in Africa. In the mean time we are looking at the Tokyo trade meeting. We have launched the Tripartite FTA which envisages increased trade and services by August this year,” he said.
He was speaking at the British Chamber of Commerce discussion dubbed Regional trade – where are we now with a FTA and how can we increase our trade in the region?
He said a lot of negotiations were going on concerning the establishment of the CFTA throughout the continent.
There was need for countries to reduce the cost of trading in the African region.
“We want to create an enabling environment where countries will be free to invest,” he said.
The launch of the Tripartite FTA last month, which involves 26 countries, represents close to 60 percent of the African Union’s GDP and population, and an FTA among them would constitute a fundamental building block for the CFTA.