What are the reasons for Tanzania to pull out of the COMESA?
The reason why we pull out of COMESA is because Tanzania in the past was a socialist command economy and each decision to be part of any regional grouping was a political decision. The business community was not represented at all, so we became members of COMESA, SADC and anything else which was going within Africa. Tanzania would be the first country to put its signature. Now, what we are saying is that we can not realistically and rationally be members of each and every grouping which you have in Africa. We have to put priorities and we believe that based on Tanzania’s traditional trading partners, which are mainly EAC and then SADC countries, there is no need for us to duplicate and continue to remain in COMESA because the countries which are not in EAC or SADC and which are members of COMESA are countries like Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, with whom we don’t have traditional trading relationships. It also requires a lot of technical expertise to deal with regional trade protocols.
