ISDS Case Map
SADC
Southern Africa Development Cooperation
Intra-regional trade is really pathetic within the Southern African Development Community, says United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Senior Regional Agriculture Programme Manager Cecilia Kuphe.
South Africa and the European Union said on Thursday that they will give priority to concluding the EU-Southern African Development Community Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations.
The song of Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional integration is sung so loudly that even the deaf can hear it. But my recent experience in Windhoek, Namibia tends to prove that the reality on the ground does not match the rhetoric.
It is not certain that an African free trade area will further regional integration or deepen the existing inequality between countries.
Weariness surrounds the negotiations on an Economic Partnership Agreement regulating trade access between Southern Africa and the European Union.
A market access regulation giving SADC states, including Botswana, duty and quota-free access to the European Union is expected to elapse soon, potentially squeezing the affected states out of the world's biggest market for beef, minerals, textiles and other products.
Southern African Development Community (SADC) Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations are ongoing while efforts are at an advanced stage to consolidate and harmonise market access arrangements for the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), reported Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Tjekero Tweya in Parliament last Thursday.
At the Chirundu border, along the north-south transport corridor between Zimbabwe and Zambia, commercial trucks used to wait five days to get clearance. Now, they can get through in a matter of hours.
Non-tariff barriers (NTBs) are still the biggest stumbling block to countries raising current low levels of intra-regional trade.
It is referred to as the “Grand Free Trade Area” or the Tripartite Free Trade Agreement, and true to its name it will be one of the largest free trade areas in the developing world when it becomes a reality. The 26-nation free trade area encompassing countries from Egypt to South Africa and three existing free trade blocs will be a very important platform for countries to engage and invest.
