COMESA underlines activating inter-economic cooperation

Egyptian Minister of Foreign Trade Youssef Boutros Ghali on Sunday said that the ministerial meeting of the COMESA members, which wrapped up in Lusaka Saturday, underlined the necessity of activating regional economic cooperation among all member-states.

Ghali, in a statement after returning from Lusaka where he led the three-day meetings since Egypt is the current chairman of the COMESA session, added that the conferees recommended removing all customs and no-customs restrictions on COMESA members imports.

"The recommendations also included laying out regulations for dumping and subsidy," he pointed out.

The meeting also urged scrapping all hindrances for other African states who would like to join the grouping, said Ghali, noting that he was mandated by the COMESA to contact the governments of countries who would like to join the organization.

"Setting up a fund for the COMESA members to help support economic regional integration via extending soft loans for the development and infrastructure projects was also recommended at the meetings," he added.

Ghali was mandated to hold these contacts on behalf of the organization with the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the African Bank for Development (ABD) and other international and regional finance corporations to contribute to financing this fund.