When was comesa established

Membership in the African, Caribbean and Pacific States and the GSP enables products from Partner States to qualify for preferential tariffs on exports to member countries. A number of measures have been taken at the Community level to enhance trade, and these include the following:. Signed in March , the protocol came into force upon ratification by the then three EAC member countries and became effective on 1 January The objectives of the Customs Union include furthering the liberalisation of intra-regional trade in goods; promoting production efficiency in the Community; enhancing domestic, cross-border and foreign investment; and promoting economic development and industrial diversification.

A number of key strategies have been identified to be employed to in order to achieve the infrastructure strategic objective indicated above. They include the following: development and revision of model policies and regulations for Transport, ICT, and Energy ; development of aid for trade programs along the major regional corridors including the establishment of One Stop Border Posts OSBPs ; development of legal and institutional frameworks for public private sector partnerships in order to increase the private sector participation in infrastructure development; and Implementation of a communication strategy for the dissemination of information on development of infrastructure projects to all stakeholders.

Over the years, COMESA has developed, adopted and implemented a number of model policy and regulatory guidelines in transport, ICT and energy, trade and transport facilitation instruments and priority infrastructure projects. Moreover, a number of regional associations of regulatory authorities have also been established in order to facilitate policy and regulatory harmonization as well as fostering capacity building and information sharing.

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For More Information. Latest News. Do you want to relive a specific moment? Implementation of cost effective, simplified and harmonised SPS measures enable producers to secure and maintain market access for their commodities. This in turn contributes to improved income and food security leading to poverty alleviation. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa COMESA was formed in with an aim to provide a market through which member states could trade freely in order to promote economic development and food security.

Some of the potential reasons why SPS-related costs are high are because of: i administrative processes at and behind borders being complicated and lengthy, especially where countries have different requirements; ii duplication of inspections and treatments; iii over-stringent requirements arising from unnecessary measures; or iv value chain actors not having adequate knowledge or capacity to meet technical requirements. High cost of doing businesses is thought to reduce competitiveness and profitability.

The project focused on selected commodities maize, fish, oranges, beef, milk, groundnuts, and soya beans on selected trading routes in Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi. It aimed to identify and pilot tools and approaches for simplifying the application of SPS measures, upgrading and harmonizing regulatory protocols and standard schemes, and developing the necessary institutional and human resources capacities to facilitate intra—COMESA trade.

The project also aimed to identify good practices and innovative approaches that could be disseminated and replicated elsewhere in COMESA. Improved efficiency of implementation of technical measures. Breaking Barriers aimed to improve the efficiency with which technical measures were applied at specific borders for selected commodities.

It also aimed to build interactions between relevant agencies at border posts to identify how technical measures could be better integrated and made part of day-to-day border operations. Through workshops and meetings, the participating countries were able to identify opportunities for streamlining SPS measures.

They generated priority action plans to enhance efficiency, some of which were initiated during the project, including development of Standard Operating Procedures SOPs for citrus, imports, exports, sampling, and fumigation. Though identified actions were not completed during the time of the project, they remained a reference point to provide policy advice in these countries.

Through the project, countries were expected to review their national pest lists for the selected commodities and share these with their trading partner. It was also expected that they would consider conducting joint risk analysis and institute new risk-based protocols with an aim at reducing technical requirements and inspections. Sudan revised its list of pests for citrus while Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe revised their lists for maize, soya beans and groundnuts.

Based on findings from the updated lists, two joint risk analysis were conducted, one between Zambia and Malawi and the other between Zambia and Zimbabwe. These exercises indicated that SPS border procedures, including sampling for inspections were not geared towards risk management.