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COMESA secretary general Sindiso Ngwenya says the recently launched Tripartite Free Trade Area will help reduce poverty by capturing $150 billion worth of trade currently not recorded within the continent.

On June 10, in the resort city of Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, Southern African Development Community and the East African Community (EAC) launched the Tripartite Free Trade Area, a 26-member country trading bloc covering half of the continent, with a targeted population of 632 million and a combined Gross Domestic Product of $1.3 trillion.

Commenting on the initiative’s progress, Ngwenya said 16 countries, including Zambia, had already signed the agreement and the declaration of the Tripartite Free Trade Area, waiting for ratification by their respective parliaments.

He said many more countries that were still making internal consultations were expected to sign the agreement and the declaration in the next few days.

“The importance of this is that we can easily increase intra-regional trade by 10 to 15 percent. This will bring billions of dollars to our economies but most importantly, we’re also going to be using the tripartite Free Trade Area for investment,” Ngwenya said in an interview. “For example, we’ve about $150 billion worth of trade that can be traded, which isn’t being traded among the tripartite countries. So even if you say you only trade 20 percent of that, it means you’re trading in billions of dollars of those goods.”

Ngwenya said enhanced trade among African economies would also contribute to employment creation, ultimately reducing high poverty levels on the continent.

“If we can produce goods and services that we trade in, already we’ve created millions of jobs. The way to reduce poverty is through trade and investment. It’s not through giving grants,” he said.

The Comesa secretary general said practical poverty reduction to restore people’s dignity was through creation of decent job opportunities through deepened intra-trade on the continent.

He said intra-regional trade was good for individual economies and the region at large and that it would also contribute towards reducing current migrations into Europe where Africans were dying crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

“People are dying in the Mediterranean (Sea) trying to get to greener pastures. The greener pastures are here (in Africa). Ultimately, in the medium to long term, the tripartite trade initiative will save African lives being lost in the Mediterranean. It’s through growth that we can prevent people migrating. Who wants to migrate if you have a job? You don’t want to migrate and end up dying in the Mediterranean and being eaten by fish,” said Ngwenya. — postzambia.com