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34th ordinary SADC summit of the Heads of State and Government in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe |19 August 2014

Member states urged to boost industrialisation process

Member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have been urged to place emphasis on strengthening the industrialisation process to transform the region’s economies in terms of employment and wealth creation and boosting of value based exports.

Outgoing SADC chairman, President Arthur Peter Mutharika of Malawi, said this in his speech at the opening ceremony of the 34th SADC summit of Heads of State and Government on Sunday at the Elephant Hills resort in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

He also ceremoniously handed over the SADC chairmanship badge to Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe.

President Mutharika said the region adopted the SADC Industrial Development Policy Framework to use it as a vehicle for the transformation of economies in SADC countries.

He added that the policy framework if well implemented would, among others, help address long standing challenge of trade imbalance among member states thereby creating jobs and wealth for their peoples.

Said President Mutharika: “I’m excited to note that the theme of the incoming chairperson seeks to strengthen this initiative. I encourage the region to rally behind the chairperson to ensure successful implementation of this painful but necessary process.”

When he spoke about infrastructure development, he said that following the adoption of the SADC Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plan in Maputo in August, 2012, the process of marketing the projects was intensified. But he stressed that the region needed to redouble efforts to allocate local resources for investment in infrastructure if it were to scale up implementation of agreed priority projects.

“Of particular concern is the urgent need to address power shortfalls in the region, and provision of trade related infrastructure, namely transport infrastructure, border facilitation measures and elimination of notorious non tariff barriers (NTBs),” said President Mutharika who added that all countries should rally around the priorities identified in the review of the SADC Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP).

Member states should also establish their own funding mechanisms to ensure that priority interventions are adequately funded, he said, noting that the long process of dialogue and preparation for elections in Madagascar culminated in democratic elections in that country and he felt proud as SADC, that a democratically elected government is now in place.

As the new chairman of SADC, President Mugabe will now chair the summit of Heads of State and Government, council of ministers meetings, standing committee of senior officials’ meetings and sectoral meetings.

In his acceptance speech, President Mugabe said: “As SADC, we should not lose sight of our regional integration agenda, our focus and priorities. We should not be tempted to introduce, or embrace, too many programmes which, in the end, we fail to fund from our own resources.”

Established since 1980, SADC is a regional economic community comprising 15 member states those being Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Gerard Govinden in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

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