(VOVworld) – Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on Sunday urged African leaders to pledge their efforts to establish a Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA).

AU Ordinary Summit Opens In Rwanda on July 17, 2016 (Photo: ktpress)

At a closed meeting within the framework of the 27^th African Union Summit, which took place from July 10-18, El-Sisi expressed the importance of the CFTA and said he hopes the negotiations will be a success. El-Sisi cited the previous successful regional economic conference held in Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh city last year, at which African leaders agreed to merge the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as CFTA by 2017.

At the conference, African leaders agreed to authorize the AU Committee to draft a CFTA vision, which will be discussed at the AU Summit in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa in January, 2017. The reform of UN and UN Security Council and the election of AU Committee members will be on the agenda

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