DR Congo officially joins the East African Community (EAC)
DRC was formally admitted to the EAC during the 19th Extra-Ordinary Summit of EAC Heads Of State chaired by President Uhuru Kenyatta on March 29.
The official ceremony will be held virtually followed by a summit to inaugurate EAC’s new member state.
Bordering five member states of the organization – Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan – the DRC was assessed from June 25 to July 5 on its level of compliance with the organization.
The DRC is the largest and most populous country to join the EAC, bringing a market of 90 million people and immediately upgrading the region’s GDP from $193 billion to $240 billion.
Similarly, the DRC and Tanzania control almost equally almost all of Lake Tanganyika.
As early as early June 2019, Kinshasa had expressed its willingness to join the organization in a letter to Paul Kagame, then-current chair of the EAC Heads of State Summit.
DRC now joins Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan as a member of the community.
