May 22, 2001

Excellencies Heads of State and Government,

Ministers and Heads of Delegations,

   The Right Honourable sir Anerood Jugnauth, Prime Minister of Mauritius and Chairman of the 5th Session of the COMESA Summit,

    Their Highnesses and Exellencies and Heads of State and Government, Heads of International and Regional Organizations and Institutions, Mr. Secretary-General of COMESA,

    Ladies and Gentlemen,

    At the outset, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you all at the beginning of the deliberations of the ordinary 6th session of the COMESA heads of state and government.

    It is a source of pride for us that this summit is held for the first time in Egypt since our accession to the organization in July 1998. We are further gratified that this summit is held under the slogan "COMESA Free Trade Area, a Breakthrough towards Investment"

    Since its accession to this young organization, Egypt has earnestly sought to seriously and constructively carry out her responsibilities, and to actively and effectively participate in its activities.

    Our target has been to reach economic integration among member-states and realize the aspirations of our peoples and all those of the African continent to create the African economic community, in implementation of the Abuja Agreement,1991.

    Accordingly, Egypt hosted, in February 2000, the COMESA First Regional Economic Conference, attended by heads of the then members of the summit.

    It was also attended by more than 1,600 government officials, businessmen, heads of private and public sector companies and executive directors of various regional and international financial and economic organizations.

    Egypt has called for this significant economic conference with a view to conducting an open and comprehensive dialogue, not only between those in charge of economy, trade and investment sectors in member-states but also between them and other concerned institutions on the international arena.

    This aims at disseminating awareness of our promising gathering and shedding light upon our region’s vast potentials and huge resources.

    These provide a strong base for effective joint cooperation, help maximize the volume of inter-trade and highlight the volume of potential of rewarding returns to both national and foreign investors alike.

    You may agree with me that the unique event Cairo witnessed about a year ago, has achieved its aspired goals; providing opportunities for acquaintance and cooperation between national economic sectors and businessmen in our countries.

    In addition, this event has attracted the attention of foreign corporations, institutions and businessmen of other countries to the huge potential of the COMESA region and the promising opportunities it offers for joint-venture projects that may realize mutual interests for both sides and help enhance our prime African orientation towards economic unity.

    Mr. President,

    Our meeting today has a special significance both in terms of timing and content. As to timing, this is the first summit after launching COMESA Free Trade Area on October 31, 2000 as the first in Africa.

    Hence our meeting today marks the culmination of this achievement and underscores that our common determination to adhere to the rules of the Free Trade Area, work for its success, and realize its aspired goals in the interest of all our peoples.

    In terms of content, this summit is held at time of growing challenges and escalating trends towards economic, trade, cultural and intellectual globalization.

    These are accompanied with a tremendous accelerating revolution in information and telecommunication technology and domination by giant corporations over world trade and investment trends.

    All these challenges imply dangers of economic marginalization, minimization of growth opportunities, contraction of our countries’ share of world trade volume, especially in the light of the growing transition on the global market towards removing borders and eliminating restrictions on the movement of commodities, services and capital.

    Hence, we should ensure our awareness of these challenges and our unwaving commitment to the work programme we have agreed upon to meet such challenges, as initiated by COMESA Free Trade Area.

    We should proceed with resolve and determination towards realizing the following step by establishing a "customs union" and agreeing upon "uniform foreign customs tariffs" by 2004.

    Should the foregoing be achieved, they would be a step forward on the way to the aspired "regional economic integration".

    I am confident that our success in activating Free Trade Area (FTA) will be the best incentive to the member-states still outside FTA to quickly join it and bring customs reductions, currently applied at variable precentage, down to total exemption.

    We understand that some countries may have fears that accession to FTA would result in decreasing customs proceeds.

    However, the provisional nature of such reduction and its effective impact on realizing free trade among our countries will ultimately benefit all our peoples.

    Hence, accession to FTA is a necessity to face the successive international changes, maximize the volume of our trade exchange in a manner that enhances development efforts in our countries, open new export markets, and redouble volume of production.

    This will create new job opportunities and tangibly help curb unemployment problem from which our countries as well as all world countries suffer.

    Mr. President,

    The success of the Free Trade Area does not only depend on the efforts of governments and official institutions in the member states, but it also requires cooperation on the part of the private sector and businessmen, in addition to their consciousness of the importance of such a step.

    This provides a serious breakthrough that should be utilized to expand terms of trade and create joint-venture projects that realize common interests of our peoples.

    By ratifying the creation of the Free Trade Area, offering all the facilities necessary for its success and removing barriers to free trade among member-states, governments have already fulfilled their road.

    Now it is the duty of the private sector to take up its responsibilities, work for fostering cooperation relations with their counterparts in member-states.

    It should also make use of the advantages offered by Free Trade Area in increasing terms of trade to withstand wild international competition under an open free-trade-based global system that acknowledges only large economic blocs and entities.

    Within this framework, we welcome the establishment of the COMESA businessmen council that brings together businessmen and private sector of member-states of the organization.

    At the same time, we stress the important role to be performed by this council to realize the required communication and integration among businessmen of the COMESA member-states.

    This should be conducted through active moves based on clear vision supported by an integrated data base. Thus, our common goals as well as those of businessmen, each in his own domain, could be realized in the same time.

    Moreover, we are confident of the consciousness of businessmen and the private sector and their ability to activate such role at this crucial stage so as to realize our aspired objectives to maintain regional economic integration among member-states of the COMESA.

    While the Free Trade Area provide a framework for enhancing economic cooperation and increasing the volume of trade exchange among our countries, it is required for consummating such framework to make available tools necessary to realize such objective.

    Foremost of such tools are to upgrade and modernize infrastructure, put into effect the open skies initiative, link information networks covering fields of trade or small and medium industries and develop a regional strategy for industry and agriculture.

    These tools also include ways of overcoming transport problems by providing an integrated maritime, air and land transport networks among others.

    In this context, I would like to refer to a number of initiatives offered by Egypt, salient of which is a proposal to create an electronic linkage between trade information centres in member-states by establishing a network of existing trade points to facilitate the mission of private sectors and investors within or outside the COMESA countries for identifying its markets and export and investment opportunities.

    Egypt presented another initiative for establishing a net linking institutions operating in small and medium industries within COMESA region.

    This reflects our recognition of the importance of fostering this sector and enhancing its role in development efforts within our country.

    In addition, Egypt has made contributions towards the success of the open skies programme.

    We have also offered many training scholarships in civil aviation designed to form skilled staff capable of enhancing performance and management level in this field.

    Prompted by its keenness to expand transport and communication network linking COMESA countries, Egypt has already initiated efforts to extend airlines of its national air transport company to a number of capitals of COMESA member-states, in addition to the existing regular and direct lines that already link Cairo with nearly one third of the member-states.

    Since August 1999, i.e. less than one year after Egypt’s accession to COMESA, the Egyptian private sector launched a regular shipping line between Suez Port and eastern and southern African ports of Port Sudan, Mombassa, Djibouti, Port Louis and Dar es-salam.

    Overland transport lines to COMESA land-locked countries were also arranged. These efforts aim at providing rapid and safe transportation of goods and promotion of trade movement among. our countries.

    Mr. President,

    It goes without saying that our joint pursuit for economic integration can not be achieved in isolation from efforts exerted by other African regional economic groupings.

    Hence came our agreement on the need to coordinate efforts, in this regard, between COMESA group on one hand and other regional organizations on the other.

    These include Southern African Development Community (SADC) comprising inter alia nine member-states that are also members of COMESA, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Economic Central African States (ECAS), Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), Community for Sahel and Sahara States (CEN-SAD), Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) as well as other African organizations and groupings that all seek to realize ambitions and hopes of the peoples of the continent for development and welfare.

    Indeed, it is our goal to achieve coordination and integration with regional African organizations.

    However, communication and cooperation with the international economic organizations and other regional groupings outside the African continent will remain a policy that should be adhered to and properly utilized for building an international economic order cognizant of the interests of all parties and based on the principles of justice, equality and mutual respect.

    Hence also comes our interest in being open to the outside world, inviting investors from all parts of the world and encouraging them to explore wide prospects and the promising investment opportunities within the COMESA region.

    In this respect it is particularly important to note that, according to impartial international studies, return on investment in Africa hits an average of 29%; the highest and most feasible worldwide.

    The importance of investment in the COMESA member-states is closely connected with the role entrusted to us to create an atmosphere of regional security and stability to attract more governmental and private investments to our region.

    Undoubtedly, there is a close mutual correlation between encouraging the flow of investments and attracting capital on one hand and realizing peace and enhancing security and stability in our region on the other.

    This concept was confirmed by the founding agreement of the COMESA and pinpointed by our fourth ordinary summit in Nairobi, May 1999.

    The summit had endorsed an Egyptian proposal to convoke an annual meeting on the foreign ministers level to find means to settle African conflicts and agree on necessary mechanisms to realize this goal.

    It was also a great pleasure for all of us when Mauritius Summit in May 2000 endorsed the recommendation agreed upon by the ministers as regards the pivotal role to be played by the COMESA Authority and the Summit Bureau, in cooperation with the Organization of African Unity’s conflict settlement mechanism to push forward joint efforts to settle existing conflicts in our region by peaceful means.

    This would create a favourable atmosphere for investment and direct resources and energies wasted away by such conflicts to economic and social development efforts.

    While asserting the importance of pursuing joint efforts to realize peace and stability, we also welcome the recent positive developments that have taken place in the COMESA region since our last summit in Mauritius.

    Foremost of them comes the peace agreement signed between Ethiopia and Eretria last December, in addition to the effective steps recently taken to put into effect Losaka agreement on settling conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other successive positive developments.

    Seizing this opportunity to express my deep appreciation and gratitude to all the presidents who contributed to achieving those results and to the foreign and international parties who supported them, I would like also to re-assert that we still have much hard work to do, a long way to go and a pressing need to meet.

    To this end we should pursue efforts, join forces to put an end and find appropriate peaceful solutions to all ongoing conflicts in our continent.

    This would guarantee a safe environment for the present and future generations, pave the way for attaining a better life for our peoples and open doors for closer cooperation between our countries on one hand and the world’s countries on the other.

    Once again, I welcome all of you in your second home; Egypt, wishing you comfortable stay and all success for our summit.

    May Allah’s peace and mercy be upon you .