Zimbabwe: African Parliament Working on Customs Union

Source from:  The Herald (Harare) 17 January 2008 01/18/2008

The Pan-African Parliament's Committee on Trade, Customs and Immigration Matters is working towards integrating regional customs unions on the continent to come up with an African customs union. A member of the committee, Mr Joram Gumbo, who is also the Mberengwa West MP and Government Chief Whip, said this week that his committee would convene a trade meeting for heads of government and leaders of the respective customs unions before April to discuss the matter. He said the meeting would be held either in South Africa, Nigeria or Libya. "When the committee was formed the focus was mainly to come up with an integrated customs union but first we mandated countries to integrate at regional levels," he said. "Still there were some problems and our main focus now is to come up with a unified African customs union that will cover all countries," he said. Mr Gumbo said since PAP had not yet been granted constitutional powers, the meeting would persuade the respective governments to ensure that the union comes into fruition. "We do not have a constitutional right to effect change but we will persuade the respective governments to consider this," he said. Mr Gumbo said a number of trade barriers still existed in Africa, resulting in skewed trade among members. He said a lot of trade agreements existed between few countries but these needed to be transformed to regional and finally continental levels. "Even in the Southern African Development Community we have trade agreements between member states being different. We are working to ensure that such issues are addressed, not on regional basis, but continentally." Due to trade barriers, African countries are finding it difficult to access their own products. "We have a lot of tobacco in Zimbabwe but due to a number of trade barriers, the product is more accessible in Europe or China than in Burkina Faso which is another African country," said Mr Gumbo. The committee would work in the same way as that of security that seeks to come up with an African army. In Sadc, member countries have targeted a common customs union by 2010, as the grouping seeks to increase trade and co-operation within the region. Other regional bodies, such as the East African Community, have also targeted common customs unions. Enditem