ISDS Case Map
SADC
Southern Africa Development Cooperation
The SADC Secretariat has achieved little progress in getting Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo to joining its trade liberalisation process, the Free Trade Area, which has been in existence for nearly three years now.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) was presenting a more unified front at the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations with the European Union (EU), said Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies, adding that a final agreement could possibly be reached by mid-2011.
The government has thrown its weight behind the South African sugar industry’s demand for preferential access to European markets. If granted, this would put SA on an equal sugar-trade footing with other sugar producing developing economies — the African-Pacific-Caribbean countries and the world’s least developed countries — for the first time since the industry lost its access under apartheid.
SADC states and the European Union have missed the year-end deadline for the completion and signing of a full Economic Partnership Agreement, a target set in June and designed to bring finality to the complex process.
The European Union must scale back plans to protect its industries if it wants to seal a long-deadlocked trade deal with southern African states, South Africa's trade minister said Tuesday.
African governments’ ambitious plan for a tripartite free trade area (FTA), stretching from South Africa to Egypt, could be more realistic than getting existing ineffective regional customs unions on the continent to work.
A regional SACU civil society conference has recommended that there is a need for a broader regional agenda anchored on the strength of small economies in the region.
The envisaged grand Free Trade Area (FTA), a grouping of COMESA, EAC and SADC will hold a decisive tripartite summit in January 2011 in South Africa as a major push for coalescence amongst the 26 countries gathers traction.
The private sector has been urged to actively participate in the formulation of policies that will help guide the proposed Free Trade Area of COMESA, East African Community (EAC), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
The Southern African People’s Network summit ended with a call from more than 350 grassroots representatives for regional governments to reject the imposition of the Economic Partnership Agreements.
