African Free Trade Zone

The African Free Trade Zone (AFTZ) is a free trade zone announced at the EAC-SADC-COMESA Summit on 22 October 2008 by the heads of Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the East African Community (EAC). The African Free Trade Zone is also referred to as the African Free Trade Area in some official documents and press releases.

In May 2012 the idea was extended to also include ECOWAS, ECCAS and AMU.

In June 2015, at the African Union Summit in South Africa, negotiations were launched to create a Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) with all 55 African Union states by 2017.

The leaders of the three AFTZ trading blocks, COMESA, EAC, and SADC, announced the agreement, with the aim of creating a single free trade zone to be named the African Free Trade Zone, consisting of 26 countries with a GDP of an estimated US$624bn (£382.9bn). It was hoped that the African Free Trade Zone agreement would ease access to markets within the AFTZ zone and end problems due to several of the member countries in the AFTZ belonging to multiple regional groups.^{[citation needed]}

The African Free Trade Zone announced at the EAC-SADC-COMESA Summit (also known the AFTZ Summit and Tripartite Summit) effectively is the realization of a dream more than a hundred years in the making, a trade zone spanning the length of African continent from Cape to Cairo, from North African Egypt all the way to the southernmost tip of Africa in South Africa (Cape Town). The Cape to Cairo dream was envisioned by Cecil Rhodes and other British imperialists in the 1890s and was expressed in different contexts and versions including, but not limited to, the following ideals: Cape to Cairo Road, Cape to Cairo Railway, Cape to Cairo Telegraph, and Cape to Cairo Trade Union.^{[citation needed]}

While other powers, notably Germany and Portugal had colonies or spheres of influence in the Cape to Cairo trade zone contemplated, the primary benefactor of the Cape to Cairo union would have been Great Britain and the British Empire. The biggest difference in the idea of the original Cape to Cairo zone and its current incarnation is that the African Free Trade Zone is the creation of African Countries for the mutual benefit and development of the AFTZ member countries, their peoples and the whole of continent of Africa rather than a trade zone for the benefit of Great Britain. Ultimately, it is hoped the AFTZ would serve as a key building block to African Unity and the realization of a united Africa under the auspices of the African Union.^{[citation needed]}

Another important difference between the original and current ideal is that the AFTZ encompasses an area greater than the one even Cecil Rhodes could have imagine. The original Cape to Cairo idea in Cecil Rhodes' time and now under the AFTZ is a free trade zone spanning the whole continent from Cape Town in South Africa to Cairo in Egypt. Cecil Rhodes' Cape to Cairo would have involved at most a dozen countries. The current rendition of the Cape to Cairo zone actualized by the AFTZ encompasses most of Africa, almost half of the countries (26 out of 54), more than half of the production, trade, population, land mass and resources. If it actualizes its potential and becomes a truly integrated economic union, the AFTZ could actually rival any other economic union with its vast natural resources, huge markets, young population, and great technical know-how (mostly courtesy of SADC in general and the Republic of South Africa in particular).^{[citation needed]}

In addition to eliminating duplicative membership and the problem of member states also participating in other regional economic cooperation schemes and regional political and security cooperation schemes that may compete with or undermine each other, the African Free Trade Zone further aims to strengthen the AFTZ block's bargaining power when negotiating international deals.^{[citation needed]}