EAC, COMESA, SADC to Ink Tripartite Free Trade Pact in Cairo Next Month

The Tripartite Free Trade Area agreement between Comesa, SADC, and EAC will be signed in Cairo within next month, said Egyptian minister of industry and trade Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour.

The FTA will be among the regional blocs of East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), aiming to contribute to economic growth of the blocs and the entire African continent in general.

The Tripartite FTA popularly known as the Grand Free Trade Area, will be the largest economic bloc on the continent and the launching pad for the establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) in 2017.

The tripartite FTA will encompass 26 member states from the three blocs with a combined population of 625 million people and a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $1.2 trillion and will account for half of the membership of the African Union and 58% of the continent’s GDP.