SADC to launch free trade by 2008

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is on course to establish a free trade area by 2008, Lesotho Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili said on Monday.

He made the statement at the opening of an extraordinary heads of state and government summit in Midrand, between Johannesburg and Pretoria.

Mosisili, current chairman of SADC, said the process to achieve the free trade area would be "a give and take affair."

Several heads of government and state, including South African President Thabo Mbeki and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, are attending the conference on regional integration.

They will review recommendations by a ministerial task team -- comprising trade, industry and finance ministers in the region -- about the best way to achieve the free trade area.

The SADC negotiated a free trade area in 2000 and then adopted a trade principle, emulating the body's regional indicative strategic plan, spelling out frames for achieving a free trade area, a customs union by 2010, a common market by 2015, and a single currency by 2016.

Source: Xinhua