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President Hakainde Hichilema has taken up leadership of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), with a commitment to accelerate regional integration, trade and a call to create non-stop border posts in the region.
Hichilema, who will work with Burundi after taking up the vice-presidency of the authority, also strongly emphasised the need to prioritise promotion of peace and stability in the region and Africa at large.
These commitments were made in his acceptance speech on Thursday in Lusaka at the 22nd COMESA Heads of States and Government Summit under the theme: “Economic Integration for a thriving COMESA anchored on Green Investment, Value Addition and Tourism.”
Hichilema further committed his team to accelerate COMESA regional expansion and integration programmes focused on joint ventures.
“We will also focus on exploiting opportunities for join investments for our people to make decisions to harmonise trade region, to harmonise our borders.
“I have argued before colleagues that we should not be proud of one stop borders. Why stop a truck at a Zambia/Zimbabwe border, Mozambique border and indeed another border? Let us just be borderless by creating non-stop borders. that is my Argument. Non-stop borders will reduce the cost of doing business,” he said.
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Commitment on job creation to provide green energy was also among the focus areas Hichilema said his team would look at as this was important for all member states, especially that they were endowed with vast natural resources.
According to Hichilema, this would be backed by creation of opportunities for youths in the region through promotion of value addition.
“We will carry on things that had worked and improve on those which did not work. We will work hard to make you proud. We are committed work or maybe run that path for economic growth,” he said.
On peace and stability, Hichilema said it would be one of the top priorities for his team saying “instability anywhere is instability everywhere.”
He stated that instability was slowing down the growth of the economy.
Handing over the leadership, outgoing COMESA Chairman, who is also Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah El Sisi, expressed confidence in Hichilema and his team to take the region forward.
Sisi, who served for two years as Chairman, said he was confident that the new leadership would do everything in their power to build on the achievements on his chairmanship.
He also spoke about the need for peace and stability in the region while calling on all countries to support one another.
“As for peace and security, we are facing magnitudes of challenges that are bordering on the sustainable peace and security of our countries that requires us to connect to a number of parameters and support each other,” Sisi said.
Meanwhile, Kenya President William Ruto, congratulated Hichilema and his team on his chairmanship for COMESA.
Ruto also commended Sisi for his visionary leadership exhibited over the last two years.
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