Historic ‘Cape to Cairo’ free trade pact signed

African leaders last week signed a potentially historic 26-nation free trade pact to create a common market spanning half the continent from Cairo to Cape Town. A report on The Citizen site notes that the deal on the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) caps five years of negotiations to set up a framework for preferential tariffs easing the movement of goods in an area home to 625m people. The pact was signed by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, President Robert Mugabe, of Zimbabwe, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, of Ethiopia, and Mohamed Bilal, Vice-President, of Tanzania, at a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh. However, the report notes that the timeline for bringing down trade barriers has yet to be worked out and the deal needs ratification in national parliaments within two years.