The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)

The history of COMESA began in December 1994 when it was formed to replace the former Preferential Trade Area PTA which had existed from the earlier days of 1981 COMESA as defined by its Treaty was established as an organisation of free independent sovereign states which have agreed to co-operate in developing their natural and human resources for the good of all their people and as such it has a wide-ranging series of objectives which necessarily include in its priorities the promotion of peace and security in the region However due to COMESA''s economic history and background its main focus is on the formation of a large economic and trading unit that is capable of overcoming some of the barriers that are faced by individual states COMESA''s current strategy can thus be summed up in the phrase economic prosperity through regional integration With its 19 member states population of over 389 million and annual import bill of around US$32 billion with an export bill of US$82 billion COMESA forms a major market place for bot