Trade liberalisation, market integration and cooperation agreements with major global economic blocks
The regional integration process within SADC is geared towards trade liberalisation and market integration. SADC Free Trade Area (FTA) was launched in August 2008. The implementation of SADC Trade Protocol started in 2000 with the gradual elimination of customs duties on 85% of tariff lines and with tariffs on the remaining sensitive products to be eliminated in a longer period of time. To date, 13 Member States are implementing the FTA. D.R. Congo and Comoros are yet to join SADC FTA while Angola has recently submitted an offer to accede. Within SADC, the Southern African Custom Union (SACU), the oldest customs union in the world, groups 5 Member States, namely Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa.
SADC Protocol on Trade in Services, ratified by 11 Member States, went into force in January 2022. Aiming at encouraging increased intra-regional trade in services through the gradual removal of unnecessary or over burdensome regulations affecting the cross-border supply of services within the SADC Region, it provides preferences for services in the sectors of communication, construction, energy-related, finance, tourism, and transport.
As a region and through bilateral agreements of its Member States, SADC has also developed trade, economic and cooperation agreements with major global economic blocks and countries. In particular, the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) comprises members of three Regional Economic Communities in Africa: SADC, the East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). To date, six SADC Member States have ratified the TFTA: Botswana, Eswatini, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Most of SADC Member States are also part of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), an ambitious trade pact that aims at forming the world’s largest free trade area by creating a single market for goods and services of almost 1.3 billion people across Africa, and by deepening the economic integration of the continent. The Agreement entered into force in May 2019 while trade was initiated in January 2021. All SADC Member States have signed the AfCFTA Agreement; Botswana, Comoros, Madagascar and Mozambique need to ratify it.
Beyond the African continent, SADC has also developed relations with key partners. SADC and the European Union have long standing cooperation agreements, with the EU supporting the regional integration process of the SADC region on a consistent basis. Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) or interim EPA were signed with 11 of the 16 Member States1 while Angola and the EU are engaged since 2021 in negotiations on a Sustainable Investment Facilitation Agreement. Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and the DR Congo benefit from duty-free, quota-free EU access under the EU Everything but Arms scheme. Further, all SADC Member States except Zimbabwe and Seychelles, benefit from the US African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) that facilitates market access to the US for qualifying Sub-Saharan African countries. SADC also agreed on a SADC-China framework of cooperation as part of China’s cooperation with the African continent. Finally, in 2018, SADC and the Russian Federation signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Basic Principles of Relations and Cooperation.