ABSTRACT
The Preferential Trade Area (PTA) was created as a first step towards the establishment of a Common Market for Eastern and Southern African States. Regional grouping had always been a basic policy prescription of African economists. Regional cooperation in Africa is, thus, a matter of taking positive action towards integration and not simply of removing barriers to trade. An indication of how a more integrated economy in southern Africa might develop after the ending of apartheid can be found by examining the economic and financial relationships already established by South Africa with Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. Tanzanian economists have complained that sub-regional programmes and projects have been poorly integrated with national plans and budgets. The Marshall Plan had supplied most of the dollars, but the Plan had recognized the need for regional cooperation as a central development strategy.
