Africa: U.S. Business Group to Expand Options in African Common Market

12 June 2002
Corporate Council on Africa (Washington, DC)
press release

Washington, DC — The Corporate Council on Africa announced today an unprecedented six-month effort to identify trade and investment opportunities for American businesses within the 20-nation Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)*.

The initiative features the deployment of two Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) staff to work with COMESA officials at their headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia, on investment promotion and private sector development. Traveling to selected COMESA countries, CCA staff will compile current and potential African and U.S. investor lists, growth sector profiles and investment opportunities. This information will be contained in promotional materials and a user-friendly database, also to be developed by CCA staff.

CCA President Stephen Hayes, in remarks to the group's membership, predicted greater ties between the American private sector and Africa's regional economic blocs, including COMESA. "We believe", Hayes said, "that stronger regional economic communities in Africa mean greater opportunity for U.S. companies and will lead to greater transparency, more uniform trade standards and consistency in adherence to trade laws."

COMESA was founded in 1994 with the strategy of "economic prosperity through regional integration". The common market has a population of over 385 million and an annual import bill of $32 billion. In October 2000, the COMESA Free Trade Area was launched, providing for tariff-free trade of goods between nine COMESA countries.

The Lusaka-based CCA staff are Tim McCoy, who served as CCA director of communications, and Paul G. Dionne, a website and database technician. Their work is funded jointly by CCA and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

CCA, established in 1992, is the leading U.S. nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting trade and investment ties between the United States and Africa. CCA's nearly 200 members represent approximately 85 percent of total U.S. private sector investments in Africa. The CCA website is at www.africacncl.org

*COMESA member countries are Angola, Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Swaziland, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The COMESA website is at www.comesa.int

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