African Tripartite Agreement committee to meet in Cairo

CAIRO – 27 July 2017: The 18th meeting of the technical committee of the African Tripartite Agreement started meetings in Cairo to discuss latest progress of the deal Wednesday.

Expected to last four days, the committee will tackle efforts of the African countries that will benefit from the anticipated Free Trade Agreement.

In June 2015, three major African blocks: the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (EAC) signed a Free Trade Agreements.

The participating countries in this agreement are 26 countries, launching the largest economic and trade alliance in Africa.

Despite being signed, after wide-scale meetings between the three blocks in Uganda in 2008 and Johannesburg in 2011, more negotiation rounds and meetings between members of the technical committee to draft action plans to put the agreement into force.