Egypt admitted into COMESA

Egypt was admitted into the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) as the 20th member of the economic grouping and the first north African state to come on board, reported the pana-afrtican news agency PANA.

President Frederick Chiluba of Zambia announced Monday that the leaders of Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe who are attending the third Comesa summit had Sunday night unanimously agreed to admit Egypt. Chiluba, the outgoing chairman of COMESA, however, urged the leaders who had not yet approved the admission of Egypt to do so. According to COMESA officials, Egypt would provide a big market for some of the exports of the current members.

The total trade of COMESA member states in 1994 was estimated at 30 billion U.S. dollars compared with Egypt's total trade of 15 billion dollars in that year.

COMESA was established in 1994, to replace the Preferential Trade Area for Eastern and Southern Africa, which had been in existence since 1981.

It was reduced to 19 members in 1997 after Mozambique decided to withdraw its membership, Map reported.

The summit also announced the appointment of seven judges to serve the Lusaka-based Comesa Court of Justice, expected to be operational soon.

Josaphat Kanyanyi of Tanzania was appointed president of the court. The proposed court would settle disputes among member states and adjudicate in cases arising from the interpretation of the Comesa treaty.

Comesa said it was prompted to establish the court because there are a lot of disputes within the member states which were yet to be unresolved, through negotiations since there was no mechanism to deal with such problems.