The concept of a common market involves the elimination of all obstacles to intra-community trade in order to merge the national markets into a single market bringing about the conditions as close as possible to those of a genuine internal market.

A Common Market can be defined as a merger/union of two or more territories to form one common territory in which there is free movement of persons, goods, labour, services and capital, and the rights of establishment and residence.

Article 1 of the EAC Treaty defines a Common market as:  “The Partner States’ markets integrated into a single market in which there is free movement of capital, labor, goods and services.”