Competition laws and policies have long been present in industrialised economies but only started to take root around the 1990s in the non-industrialised and emerging economies.

It was estimated that since the year 2000, only half of the 54 Member States of Africa have enacted competition laws in their countries. The adoption of competition laws in Africa have largely been as a motive for African economies to comply with regional trade agreements, especially within Southern Africa as a result of being members of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). SACU has a legal annex on competition law developed but not enforced and SADC has a cooperation model on competition across its member states.

A major milestone for acceleration of competition regime in Africa has been as a result of the Tripartite arrangement where the regional blocs in Eastern and Southern Africa comprising members states of SADC (that comprises Member States of SACU), East African Community (EAC) and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) have focussed on the enactment and harmonisation of competition policies and laws amongst and between its member states. The COMESA Competition Authority was also recently established to implement competition enforcement within its member states.

Having to enact and operationalise competition policies and laws for an African economy is essential if it wants to manage its economy through a regulatory system that fosters economic growth, innovation and development.

Anecdotal and researched literature shows that competition laws do discipline market competition in any economy.

It fosters competitiveness of markets and businesses and also assist in consumer protection where consumers get the best products for the least prices.

Competition Laws do condition and heal market failures i.e. the private sector sometimes not doing what it ought to do in terms of proper and orderly competitive conduct in the marketplace.

Competition laws assist in fostering innovation by nudging businesses to constantly improve, bringing in new equipment and producing products which are competitive and offering wide range of choice for consumers.

The competitive dynamics ensure that new firms come into the market and prosper if they perform well in the marketplace and less efficient firms become unprofitable and are forced out or close down. These have implications for the industrialisation efforts in an economy and industrial growth in general for Africa.

Competition protects consumers and SMEs, and can aid in economic democracy where the consumers who form a larger economic agent in the social and productive process of an economy has a voice on consumer issues and also ensure proper behavioural conduct of firms especially of the bigger firms on SMEs in African economies. Small Firms can be harmed, no less than individual consumers by the actions of bigger firms on which they rely for inputs.

Competition laws change the business landscape through Mergers and Acquisitions in the African economies because they inadvertently reduce the number of market players.

Merger review allows examination of the positive and negative implications of any merger and assists in whether a new firm coming into an economy through foreign direct investment lessens competition, promotes abuse dominance, stifles SMEs, or dislocates regional or industrial sectors, leads to unemployment or has efficiency gains.

Competition Policy and Law can assist in securing gains from trade liberalisation and market opening. The reduction of barriers to trade and the removal of barriers to entry for domestic and foreign investment can actually assist African economies to access their regional and continental markets and can spur competition for the production of goods and services unique to Africa  through free trade, efficient production and industrial processes and proper market access.

Regional integration is about deepening the areas of cooperation amongst a group of member states. Regional Integration is a process and a means to an end and requires certain discipline for Africa to succeed. Successful regional integration is always characterised by free movement of goods amongst Member States, albeit with a recognition to ensure protection of its sensitive and economically necessary local productive and industrial capacities.

Regional Integration requires adherence to compliance measures which facilitate trade such as the simplified customs procedures, one stop border posts, harmonised rules and proper documentation on trade standards at borders and converged tariff setting and import and export charging rules.

Regional Integration is important for developing industrial capacity. It can provide agreed sectoral and product growth points amongst its Members States and strengthen regional value chains and can provide higher scale of regional industries that have high potential for backward and forward linkages on sectors such as pharmaceuticals, agro-processing, mineral beneficiation and natural indigenous resource products.

Regional Integration is an important basis for enforcing regional competition policies and laws.

It is a well know fact that firms and business especially multinationals tend to acquire significant market power and influence pricing and volumes of supply through either monopolistic or pricing behavioural strategies.

They ultimately determine the scope and volume of business transactions and tend to capture regional markets through cross border commercial market power.

If Competition laws are fostered at the regional level, it would have the potential to ensure such cross border competition behaviour is disciplined to the best regional interest of growing economies through trade.

Regional competition policies and laws can assist in enforcing anti-competitive behaviour right across the regions and on the African continent.

It can also ensure uniform market discipline through curbing substantial abuse of market power or dominant position or monopoly situations.

The above shows that the importance of competition law as a tool to regional integration especially on the business conduct and the competitive markets in Africa cannot be underemphasised and should be pitched at regional, continental and international agendas such as SACU, SADC, COMESA, AU, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO).