Africa: Africa pushes for bigger free trade area

The effort by three of Africa’s economic communities to form a combined free trade area from Cape to Cairo involving up to 700 million people will gather momentum next month when their representatives meet in South Africa for their second tripartite summit. The combined free trade area is envisaged to unlock large cross-border infrastructure for communications, roads, rail, marine ports and air development to facilitate trade, while citizens will be able to travel freely and their skills shared by member countries.