East African Business Week (Kampala)
Bosco Hitimana
20 August 2007
Kigali — African economies must integrate if they are to get out of poverty and achieve the much desired development agendas, a leading continental ministerial group has said.
African economic integration was the key issue of discussion at a two day Conference of Ministers of the African Union (AU) in charge of Integration (COMAI) recently in Kigali.
The meeting was meant to rationalize and harmonize of regional economic communities (RECs) and was organized by the African Union Commission (AU) and the government of Rwanda.
Rwanda's foreign affairs minister Mr. Charles Murigande, who was the chairman of the meeting, said integration of Africa, is not only desirable but also achievable.
"We really don't have a choice. Our countries must integrate into world markets if we are to transform our economies from the sorry state they are in," Murigande said
According to Mr. Murigande, the creation of the United States of Africa is a vision and a beautiful dream.
"This vision and dream can only come true if we start working on it. We should now concentrate on the tasks to help us realize this dream," he said.
He said such a conference should deal with the current proliferation and overlapping of regional economic communities pursuing similar objectives and causing wastage and dispersion of Africa's meager resources.
The commissioner for economic affairs at the African Union Mr. Maxwell Mkwezalamba said implementation of protocols on diverse areas such as free movement of people, goods, services, capital, transport and communication; peace and security are likely to increase intra-trade, create jobs, induce growth and development in Africa.
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