Countries in southern Africa need to facilitate intra-regional trade, Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) CEO, Kaizer Nyatsumba, said yesterday (Monday).
This, he said, would ensure that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) became more commercially integrated and was able to offer a bigger market for its products and services.
“An ambitious regional integration agenda must be driven at a political level because political will is key if we are to quicken the pace of the regional trade harmonisation in SADC and Africa as a whole,” said Nyatsumba.
He pointed out that doing so would result in lower unit production costs, higher capacity utilisation and would improve companies’ international competitiveness.
“The Southern African Development Community must come up with policies that are in line with the continent’s ambition to transform from natural resources to value-adding and industrialised economies,” added Nyatsumba. “This calls for the development of coherent and implementable industrial policies by the respective regional economies.”
