10 April 2008
Maputo — Mozambican President Armando Guebuza told a meeting of economists of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) in Maputo on Wednesday that their exchange of experiences should serve "to demonstrate that regional integration should not be restricted to commercial agreements between the member states, but also to generate and defend common concrete interests in other areas of cooperation".
For Guebuza, regional integration is undertaken through productive acts that are visible not only to the member countries of a particular bloc, but also to other blocs in other parts of Africa and on other continents.
Integration, he insisted, should not be just about economics, but also about the values that shape a community of states, such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
"Given this complexity, regional integration requires a continual reflection so as to update the challenges and opportunities of each stage", said Guebuza, recalling that for SADC the next stages are a Customs Union in 2010, a Common Market in 2014, and monetary union in 2018. He called for continuous adaptation to the lessons learnt from similar processes elsewhere in order to design future scenarios.
Guebuza gave the CPLP economists a brief history of SADC and the organization's moves so far towards regional integration. He mentioned the benefits of the SADC Free Trade Area, which came into effect on 1 January this year, and the challenges this entails, and which requires of SADC members that they share information, experiences, and good practices of integration.
"We acknowledge your capacities to go deeper into the issue of economic integration, and that your conclusions will be valuable for the productive sector and for businesses in our country', said Guebuza.
This three day meeting is to discuss issues such as the political economy of development in Africa, challenges and experiences of central banks in the integration of financial markets, the challenges faced by the stock markets, bio-fuels, and the participation of the civil society in all these issues.
The chairperson of the Association of Mozambican Economists (AMECON), Miquelina Menezes said that the meeting is being attended by 300 participants from Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe, and East Timor. The last such meeting took place in Angola in 2006.
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