An Analysis of Intra-Regional Trade and Economic Integration in Africa: the Case of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)

Abstract

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) envisaged its transformation from PTA to a Common Market in 1993 and agreed to become a Monetary Union in 2008 with 36 months of preparation. The purpose of this research is to understand how integrated COMESA is by looking into the history from PTA to Tripartite FTA, examining trade patterns and analyzing various indicators on the integration degree of member states: revealed comparative advantages (RCA), trade intensity index (ITI), and regional orientation index (ROI). As analyzing the integration indicators, several problems are discovered such as lack of trade complementarity, heavy reliance on primary commodities, trade diversion, and issues in harmonization of trade policies in COMESA.