Southern African countries should just establish one customs union to avoid conflicts in international trade, a senior European Union (EU) official said here on Thursday.
Derek Fee, EU's head of delegation in Zambia, said in an interview that since it is not possible for a country to belong to more than one customs union, the countries in the region need to come up with one customs union.
Currently, the countries in the region are embroiled in controversy of belonging to more than one regional body.
The two existing bodies, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are both in the process of establishing customs union.
World Trade Organization (WTO) trading rules do not allow a country to belong to more than one custom union.
At the 27th SADC summit held last week in Lusaka, SADC leaders expressed concern over the dual membership of some of the member countries in the region.
The leaders said the dual membership would cause problem once the two bodies establish customs unions respectively.
COMESA is establishing its customs union next year while SADC intends to establish it's customs union in 2010.
The EU official said, however, the establishment of customs union in the region would not impact negatively on the current Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) currently underway between the EU and African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) countries, which are expected to be finalized at the end of this year.
"I don't really think dual membership and EPAs have a problem, the issue that should be looked into is belonging to one customs union," the official said.
Nine SADC members are also members of COMESA.
Source: Xinhua
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