Southern African nations push for European trade-deal extension
Bloomberg | March 31, 2014
Southern African nations push for European trade-deal extension
By Mbongeni Mguni
Southern African trade ministers will lobby for an extension of a trade agreement with Europe before it expires in October, a senior Botswana official said.
The ministers will seek support for the extension of the seven-year-old Economic Partnership Agreement at a two-day European Union-Africa summit that starts April 2 in Brussels, Botswana Trade Minister Dorcas Makgato-Malesu said.
“We will speak about the implications it has for our economies,” she said from the capital, Gaborone. “We resolved to attend the summit and effectively lobby as the ministers of trade in the Southern African Development Community.”
Under an interim EPA signed in 2007, the European Union agreed to give Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland and Mozambique duty- and quota-free market access for their goods, according to the EU’s website. With the exception of Namibia, the deal commits all partners to also sign EPAs on services and investment, while negotiations for a comprehensive regional EPA are “ongoing,” according to the website.
The EU is the SADC’s biggest trading partner, with the value of imports to the African bloc reaching 25 billion euros ($34.5 billion) in 2010. Exports worth 28 billion euros from SADC to the EU that year mainly included diamonds from Botswana, precious stones, metals and fish from Namibia and sugar from Swaziland.
Failure to agree on export taxes on raw commodities, agricultural safeguards such as the use of subsidies and rules of origin are holding back talks, said Makgato-Malesu.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mbongeni Mguni in Gaborone at mmguni@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net Sarah McGregor, Ben Holland
