. many people therefore believe that south africa should concentrate all its resources on the development of its own economy. there is, however, a basic fallacy in this approach. whenever south africa makes some progress in solving its own economic problems without a parallel development in other countries in the region, the unemployed from the other countries get sucked into the south african system. if south africa is not prepared to accept more exports from other african countries and does not want to allow part of the south african savings to be invested in these countries, the country will have to absorb great numbers of unemployed people from the rest of the region. the region of sadc is gradually becoming an attractive place for foreign investors. its potential for economic development is vast, and undeveloped human resources and the exploding demand for goods and services emanating from people who are now being absorbed for the first time in a real market economy, must lure many multi - national institutions to the southern africa region. it depends on us how attractive we can make our own region for the outside world as a place for long - term, durable, and productive investment.

priority of the governors ’ committee. arrangements have been introduced for the unrestricted repatriation of notes and coin used in participating countries amongst the members of sadc, and the movement towards an unrestricted flow of capital in the region is being promoted. south africa is lifting its remaining exchange controls in respect of sadc countries faster than for the rest of the world. two members, namely zambia and mauritius, have already removed all exchange controls in their countries. 7. reference has already been made to the work that is being done in the area of electronic data processing and the development of a cross - border network for financial clearing, payment and settlement transactions. international assistance is now sought ( through the world bank ) for the development of the national payment and clearing systems in the less - developed economies of the region. 7. the road ahead there is growing enthusiasm in southern africa for a regional approach to economic development issues. there are, unfortunately, more than one initiative for multinational regional economic co - operation arrangements in sub - saharan africa, initiatives that often compete with each other. in southern africa itself, the sadc and comesa ( the common market for eastern and southern africa ), groupings provide many overlapping services and some countries belong to both organisations, and others to only one of the two. the time has come for governments in the region to consider a merger of the two competing regional groupings in a more viable single regional association. both sadc and comesa have their own secretariats with a strong bureaucracy that often inhibits initiatives because of unnecessary rigid procedural requirements. in the case of the committee of governors of sadc, we often live in sin because of non - compliance with the prescribed procedures of the sadc secretariat. forgiveness, however, can easily be extorted, as long as progress and successes can be claimed. there is among some governments still a strong suspicion of the motives behind closer economic co - operation in the region. the question arises whether it is perhaps not a real danger that the powerful south african economy will exploit the smaller economies for its own advantage : south africa has to act with great discretion in performing its role in the programme. south africa obviously has a vested interest in the economic development of the region as a whole. internally, south africa still has many serious economic problems that must be resolved to improve the living conditions of its own people. unemployment is high, many communities live in great poverty, and there is a relatively wide spread between high and low incomes earned in the country