DURBAN, South Africa, Aug. 17– The 46th Ordinary Summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Heads of State and Government opened Monday in South Africa’s coastal city of Durban, with calls for deeper regional integration and stronger cooperation to advance industrialization and economic development.
The summit is being held under the theme “Resilient, sustainable and inclusive industrialization through Infrastructure Development, Agricultural and Critical Minerals Transformation in Pursuit of a Just World.”
In his opening remarks, SADC Executive Secretary Elias Magosi said the regional bloc was working to promote peace and security, expand trade and investment, strengthen infrastructure connectivity and deepen regional integration.
He called for an enabling environment that would allow young people to participate meaningfully in economic transformation and urged member states to address regional challenges through closer cooperation.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa underlined deeper regional integration to unlock economic potential and improve people’s livelihoods.
The region recorded economic growth of about 3.4 percent in 2025, while intra-SADC trade accounted for about one-fifth of total trade, Ramaphosa said, noting that the region had yet to realize the full potential of its integrated market.
He called for stronger efforts to advance industrialization and build regional value chains, as well as greater investment in infrastructure, including roads and railways linking member states and modern ports connecting Southern Africa with continental and global markets.
Ramaphosa also stressed the need to strengthen energy, water and digital security, expand electricity generation and transmission capacity, and build climate-resilient food systems.
Noting that the regional bloc should become a platform enabling businesses to access the wider African market of more than 1.4 billion people, he said: “This requires us to remove non-tariff barriers, improve border management, harmonize standards and make it easier for goods, services, capital and skills to move across our region.”
At the summit, Ramaphosa also succeeded Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa as SADC chairperson. (Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
