THE Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) would discuss opening up its membership to other countries in the region at a top-level meeting next month, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies has said.
Enlargement of Sacu, the world’s oldest free trade zone, was one issue to be discussed next month at the Sacu heads of state summit in Pretoria, Davies told Business Day on Sunday.Opening up Sacu would mean the bloc would have to speak with one voice, he said, citing a need to ‘consolidate free trade agreements’ within the region.Davies said the union could be ‘an instrument for development integration’.Any expansion of the customs union – a topic discussed before – will require a resolution to the impasse dividing South Africa and Namibia from smaller members Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland.South Africa threatened last year to tighten its border controls with Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland after the three smallest members signed interim bilateral free-trade agreements (EPAs) with the European Union (EU), in contravention of Sacu rules. South Africa has not yet done so, however.The three countries said they had signed the agreements to prevent a loss of access to the wealthy EU market after Sacu failed to negotiate a blanket agreement with the EU.South Africa and Namibia were concerned that a proposed agreement, and the individual agreements of the three smaller countries, yielded too much ground to the EU, with negative implications for the region on contentious issues such as intellectual property rights and having a common external tariff system in place.Peter Draper, head of the development through trade programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs, said so far Mozambique was the only country to show interest in becoming part of the customs union, which celebrates its centenary tomorrow .Draper also questioned the National Treasury’s willingness to subsidise new members through the customs union revenue sharing scheme. South Africa – the dominant economy in the region – massively subsidises the national budgets of other Sacu members.Davies denied that South Africa had threatened to pull out of Sacu.Draper agreed that there had been no official threat, but said comments by both the minister and President Jacob Zuma had hinted South Africa could do without the union.The EU is negotiating with all trading blocs in Africa to conclude separate economic partnership agreements with them. – Business Day
