“This was one of the decisions made by the 36th Comesa Council of Ministers meeting in Antananarivo last year. The Council asked member states that are not in the FTA to take definitive steps to join it to create an integrated internal market,” said Comesa in a statement.

Currently, 15 out of the 19 member States are participating in the FTA. They include Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In December 2015, the Democratic Republic of Congo passed the required law that allowed it to join the FTA. Its accession to the FTA will be done through a three year phase down approach starting in 2016 with a 40 percent reduction on duty.

 This will be followed by a 30 percent reduction in 2017 and another 30 percent in 2018. This will eventually bring the charges to zero percent which is a requirement for a country to fully participate in the FTA.

The Council asked DR Congo to complete the tariff reductions as set out in the legislation.The Comesa FTA was launched in October 2000 to provide duty free and quota free market access to member States on Comesa originating products.

The regional grouping has established a set or criteria known as the Rules of Origin to ensure that goods that have undergone some processing or are wholly produced within the region get preferential tariff treatment when crossing the border.

Uganda informed the meeting that its tariff reduction schedule will soon be transmitted to the Secretariat.

Eritrea was still applying 80 percent tariff reduction in its trade with the rest of Comesa member states while Ethiopia was still consulting on effecting tariff reductions which were reduced by 10 percent in 1989 for Comesa originating products.