South African President Cyril Ramaphosa urged all members of the Southern African Customs Union to divert their economies and increase inter-African trade.
"We should prioritize economic infrastructure, especially scaling up renewable energy capacity, our roads, railways, ports, telecommunications. We must discuss what we can do to diversify our economies and increase intra-African trade and deepen integrations," the president said.
Ramaphosa also advocated for industrialization and infrastructure development in the region, saying that the bloc’s members "are good positioned" to support industrial capacity and infrastructure development within SACU.
This includes automotive manufacturing, where the production of different components can be spread across several member countries and assembled in one.
The core issue, according to the monarch, is harnessing SACU's potential to develop the future.
"Let us use the current momentum to develop SACU and ensure that the pool grows for the benefit of our economies for future generations. As member countries, we all need to play our part for a sustainable future of our institution," he said.
Mswati III added that SACU has been seen growing from strength to strength, moving in the right direction, and that members should nurture this child of theirs, and where there are challenges, "we need to sit down and find an amicable solution."