‘Sadc Customs Union difficult to implement’
Outgoing chairperson of Sadc standing committee for senior officials, Santos Alvaro, has said the Customs Union (CU) concept is “very” difficult to implement in the region.
Speaking in an interview yesterday in Lilongwe on the sidelines of the committee’s meeting mandated to prepare for the Sadc Council of Ministers and Summit for Heads of State and Government, Alvaro said the regional body’s member States belonging to other regional bodies is the major stumbling block.
He said Sadc countries need to concentrate more on the free trade area (FTA) and common market agreements because the CU idea will be hard to achieve.
“It is very difficult to make progress on the Customs Union because countries belong to many organisations such as Comesa and East African Community. Countries need to belong to only one regional body to have the Customs Union,” said Alvaro.
He added that efforts on economic integration within Sadc are still suffering from poor road network, limited infrastructure and slow progress on industrialisation.
The committee’s incoming chairperson George Mkondiwa, who is also Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary, said Malawi will concentrate on implementation of existing Sadc programmes and help to foster peace and security in the region.
“The programmes are related to what we are already doing in Malawi in terms of infrastructure development and tourism, which are part of our economic recovery plan (ERP). We will work more on synchronisation of the programmes and resource mobilisation,” he said.
