So, the number of the member states that have signed totaled to 49, bringing a definite prospect for creating a vast trade market with population of more than 1.2 billion in Africa.

The AU expressed its will to make steady efforts to ensure that all its 55 member states accede to the agreement and to take it into force.

The establishment of the said free trade zone is of important significance in making the African countries achieve the economic development and prosperity in reliance on the efforts of their continent, the article says, and goes on:

The African continent, which was a material and fuel supply base of the Western countries in the past and was recognized as a symbol of backwardness and poverty, has turned into a continent developing along the orbit of independence, a continent prospering by its own efforts.

The South-South cooperation developing in the form of regional economic integration serves as a main factor of collapsing the neo-colonial domination system of the imperialists.

The present era requires the developing countries to conduct a creative struggle with higher goal of development.

By steadily expanding the South-South cooperation, the developing countries should decisively check the imperialists' moves for economic subjugation and plunder and pave a new road for the economic development and prosperity.