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Sikhulekelani Moyo, Business Reporter

THE 21st Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) Heads of State and Government Summit will be held in Egypt next month with a focus on scaling up business integration as the region maps economic recovery strategies beyond the Covid-19 pandemic.

In a latest statement, the 21-member bloc has called for speedy action towards implementation of regional integration programmes to counter the disruptive impact of the pandemic.

This background has informed the crafting of this year’s theme: “Deepening business integration to accelerate economic recovery from the negative effects of Covid-19”, which will be fully unveiled during the Summit on 23 November 2021 in Egypt.

“The theme was motivated by the emerging regional and global economic and trade dynamics, which have impacted heavily on the Comesa regional integration agenda,” said Comesa.

“The outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic has been the most impactful phenomenon, with devastating aftermath on lives and economies.

“Hence, this theme was developed as a rallying call to members States on what to focus on.”

Since the 2016 summit Comesa has anchored its theme towards digital economic integration and this has been the longest ever.

“Normally, the theme runs for one year – from one summit to the next. However, the hosting of the summit has not followed a regular pattern since 2016, leading to the unprecedented five-years-long running theme,” said the bloc.

Other previous themes were focused on fostering inclusive and sustainable industrialisation’ (2015 – 2016) and ‘consolidating intra-Comesa trade through micro, small and medium enterprise development’ (2014 –2015)

Zimbabwe is a member of Comesa, which was formed in December 1994, replacing the Preferential Trade Area, which had existed since 1981. Comesa was established as an organization of free independent sovereign states, which have agreed to cooperate in developing their natural and human resources for the good of all their people.  -@SikhulekelaniM1