Southern Africa: SADC limps towards a common market

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) expects to bring down all trade tariffs under the Free Trade Area (FTA) by 2012, by which time all countries in the region are expected to have liberalised their trade regimes, SADC trade officials have said. The regional bloc says it has liberalised about 85 percent of trade and is now phasing down tariffs for trade in sensitive products, which are expected to be completely removed by 2012.