Southern African countries hope plans to boost their economies will not be hurt by negative sentiment towards Zimbabwe, the head of a regional bloc said on Monday.
Lesotho Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili, chair of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), said it was developing programmes that would offset any spill-over from Zimbabwe’s economic crisis.
”… we should not be seen in the light of just the one member state out of 14, [so] that people will use that as a pretext not to invest in our region because one member of the family is ‘unacceptable’ to them,” he told reporters.
”That is unacceptable to us. We are saying we need to be seen in total as a region, instead of the outside world singling out the one member and saying because of member X we will not invest in SADC.”
Southern Africa’s economies have flourished over the past few years, thanks to soaring commodity prices and growing political stability.
However, Zimbabwe is battling inflation of more than 1 000% and crippling shortages of foreign currency and fuel that are partly a result of its isolation by Western countries in protest against what they call rights abuses by President Robert Mugabe’s government.
Mosisili said Zimbabwe, Botswana and Swaziland had signed a protocol that seeks to harmonise the region’s business laws and make it easier to trade with SADC countries.
The Finance and Investment protocol has now been signed by 10 countries and brought SADC one step closer to economic integration, officials said.
SADC wants to have a free trade zone by 2008 and a customs union by 2010. Via this process, SADC officials hope to remove travel restrictions between its members and create a single regional currency, cutting red tape and attracting much-needed investment.
Mosisili said SADC’s plans to boost regional integration through the removal of trade barriers should not harm its poorer members.
”It has to be a win-win situation for all member states, irrespective of the size of the economy, so that their issues of revenue loss, for instance, when we become a free trade area [are addressed],” he said. – Reuters