Greater efforts are being made to accelerate the process of establishing a free trade zone in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Angola's official news agency ANGOP reported on Sunday.
Angolan Deputy Foreign Minister George Chicoty was quoted as saying that the heads of state and government attending the 27th summit of the SADC in the Zambian capital Lusaka "have assumed a commitment of speeding up the process of creation of the regional free trade area until 2008."
Speaking at the Luanda international airport upon his arrival from Lusaka on Saturday, George Chicoty said the participants at the summit strongly defended the need to speed up the process of regional integration and debated matters relating to infrastructures and their importance in regional integration.
However, he admitted that Angola will not join this process for the time being because Angola has come out of a 27-year civil war and it is currently focusing on infrastructure reconstruction and the government's program on macroeconomic reforms.
"We have already informed SADC about out stand, which has been understood and accepted by the other members of the regional organization," he said.
During the just-concluded two-day SADC summit, Angola was elected to assume the presidency of the organ responsible for defense, police and regional security as well as presented the country's contingent for the SADC Standby Force.
The meeting also debated issues like gender and appealed for women's development and promotion.
Created in 1992, the SADC comprises 14 countries of Angola, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Lesotho, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Swaziland and Malawi.
Source: Xinhua
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