The "grand" free trade area (FTA) negotiations that are likely to be endorsed by heads of State from 26 Southern and East African countries, from Egypt in the north to South Africa at continent's tip, could be the precursor to an all-Africa agreement at a later stage.

But South Africa's Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies said on Monday that the upcoming summit of members of the East African Community, the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa and the Southern African Development Community was partly a practical response to the reality of overlapping membership, as well as a desire expressed by the three regional communities to forge greater regional integration.

Should the project be endorsed at the upcoming summit, to be held in South Africa this weekend, it could, however, emerge as the "pacemaker for a broader continental integration" at a later stage.

The trilateral FTA, or T-FTA, format was also favoured over a customs union as there was no intention to dissolve the three regional communities. Should it proceed, though, it would create a new trading bloc from Cape to Cairo, which would begin to "crack the numbers" when compared with the other members of the Brics grouping, of which South Africa was now a member - the other members are the emerging market giants Brazil, Russia, India and China.

The T-FTA would comprise a market of 533-million, with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of $833-billion, or a GDP per capita of $1 500. That would equate to 58% of Africa's GDP and 57% of the continent's population.

It would also incorporate economies that were collectively expected to expand at 5.8% in 2011, as well as some of the fastest-growing countries globally, some of which were attracting significant investor interest.

Davies stressed that the deal, which was endorsed in principle at a conference in Kampala, Uganda, in 2008, would seek to move beyond the harmonisation of trade relations, which had been found to be an insufficient ingredient alone to foster greater intraregional trade and investment. It would be backed by member-driven programmes to ease the movement of business people across the grand FTA area, as well as infrastructure projects to facilitate higher rates of trade.

A key project would be a cluster of road, rail, air and waterway programmes falling under a so-called North-South corridor vision, which sought to improve physical linkages and ease border red tape. South Africa's President Jacob Zuma had been mandated by the African Union to "champion" the plan. Davies said champions would also be found for other elements of the T-FTA programme.

Another "work stream" would be to improve cooperation on industrial development, including increasing the region's crossborder trade in raw materials, parts and components, which was currently all but nonexistent.

This project, which was already endorsed by Africa's Industry Ministers, would pay priority attention to improving prospects for the beneficiation on minerals ahead of export, as well as the further processing of agricultural products.

The heads of State would agree to an ambitious short-term timeline for the meeting of key objectives and a framework for dealing with the T-FTA's more ambitious elements.

"We are at the beginning of an important journey," Davies told foreign correspondents, adding that it was in line with a necessary response to current global economic imbalances and shifting economic power relations.