At this stage, I believe work should continue to proceed on the accepted road of focusing on identified projects that can be developed on a regional basis without full economic integration of the 14 countries now forming part of SADC. Most of these programmes will also not require any formal inter-governmental agreements.
Given the location of my speech today, let me look particularly at Germany. Having been the “sick man of Europe” in the early 2000s, the German economy has become today’s engine of the euro area economy. Moreover, growth has recently become increasingly domestically driven. This has clearly also facilitated the recovery in the other euro area economies, via higher German import demand.