East African Business Week (Kampala)
18 October 2008
The tripartite meeting of the heads of state from EAC, COMESA and SADC expected to converge in Kampala, Uganda, on October 22-23, could portend a significant realignment of the region's trade relations.
The East African Community (EAC), Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tripartite summit will bring together 26 heads of State from the combined member countries of these three trading blocs, a press statement issued in Nairobi noted.
Among others, the Tripartite summit will look at the Status of Trade Liberalisation in COMESA, EAC and SADC, the Status of regional infrastructure and legal and Institutional Arrangements for the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite group.
The Extraordinary Summit of the EAC heads of State, scheduled to kick-off immediately after the Tripartite Summit, will examine the proposed report on the integration of the Republics of Rwanda and Burundi into the EAC.
It will also look into the appointment of the judges of the East African Court of Justice to replace the president and the principal judge who will be retiring, among others.
The Tripartite framework, which is an arrangement among the Secretariats of COMESA, EAC and SADC, was initiated in 2005 in Kigali, Rwanda.
It was born out of a realization that the issue of overlapping membership in the regional Economic Communities (RECs) posed a real challenge to the integration efforts of the three trading blocs.
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