2010-04-06
CAIRO (Reuters) - An African trade body aims to finalise an internal investment agreement by August that would standardise treatment of investors from across member countries, Egypt's investment minister said on Tuesday.

"We are going to be discussing the possibility of a common investment area for the member countries of COMESA," Investment Minister Mahmoud Mohieldin told a news conference, adding that a final decision would be made by heads of state in August.

COMESA is the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, a 19-country bloc, including OPEC member Libya and the resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo, which will host a forum in Egypt's resort town of Sharm El Sheikh next week.

"The common investment area is where we are trying to harmonise the rules of investment," said Heba Salama, a COMESA official based in Egypt. "An investor from Sudan will be treated the same, if he is investing in Kenya, as a Kenyan national."

Africa boasts some 30 regional trade arrangements, but the continent receives less than 4 percent of global foreign direct investment, in part because small markets often cannot attract big money and because onerous bureaucratic requirements tend to discourage foreign business.

Widespread corruption is another hindrance.

COMESA and two other African trade blocs agreed on a much-delayed free trade programme in November that is expected to be operational within two to three years and could improve coordination among existing trade schemes.

Mohieldin said regional cooperation was increasingly important in the wake of the global financial crisis and as the World Trade Organisation's Doha round drags on.

"Especially with the failure of the Doha round so far to reach any kind of positive impact on the organisation of trade between countries, the importance of regionalism ... is getting more and more enhanced," he said.

Mohieldin said the forum, which China, India and Gulf Arab countries would also attend, would focus on investment opportunities in infrastructure, communications, information technology and agribusiness.