By Christian Tsoumou
BRAZZAVILLE, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Central African states straining under a plethora of overlapping and conflicting regional organisations have agreed to set up a single community to promote integration.
The 10 members of the Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC) agreed at the end of a presidential summit late on Tuesday to "work to put in place a single community for regional integration in Central Africa".
The decision answers calls from international institutions, including the African Union, to rationalise the proliferation of regional groupings spanning the continent.
But it faces huge practical obstacles.
Two of CEEAC's richest and most populous countries, Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo, belong both to the rival Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).
A third member, Burundi, also belongs to COMESA and last year joined the tight-knit East African Community founded by Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Rwanda, which joined the East African Community at the same time, quit CEEAC this year.
CEEAC's other members are Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, who form the Economic and Monetary Union of Central Africa (CEMAC) currency zone, and the tiny Atlantic archipelago of Sao Tome & Principe.
In their final statement, CEEAC leaders called on the European Union to help fund the revival of the region's economies and industries, as well as to make up lost customs revenues resulting from economic partnership agreements (EPAs) being negotiated with Brussels.
The EPAs, which aim to establish four separate regional free trade zones in Africa, are one of the most pressing reasons to rationalise the continent's many economic groupings.
But Angola and Burundi are each negotiating in different groups from the rest of CEEAC's members, meaning economic integration within the organisation could compromise customs zones and free trade areas created under eventual EPA deals.
Central African negotiators were in Brussels this week but did not reach the final agreement EU negotiators had hoped for, and talks are continuing.
