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Trade Perspectives
November 2009
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EDITOR’S NOTE
Dear Reader
Welcome to the third edition of our Trade Perspectives Newsletter.
In this issue we feature our new project, Promoting Dialogue on Trade Policy Reform in South Africa. This project hopes to empower stakeholders (media, business, consumers, opposition political parties and people within the governing alliance) to engage in and influence the debate on trade policy. It aims to restore balance to this debate on the basis of evidence produced by research, and will run for two years.
We again include in this edition recent opinion-editorials, publications, and events.
We hope it will be an enjoyable and stimulating read for you!
FEATURE
Promoting Dialogue on Trade Policy Reform
Funded through the Strategic Programme Fund of the British High Commission, this project aims to create a more broad-based and informed approach to trade reform based on comprehensive understanding of the costs and benefits. The project will deliver a series of events underpinned by policy research, and will mobilise a broad range of constituencies including business, consumers, political, media and other stakeholders to participate effectively in the trade reform debate through public dialogue.
SAIIA will be partnering with Mail and Guardian to promote this debate. See Mail and Guardian interview with Minister Davies on Free trade versus tariffs
Some of the project’s recent and forthcoming outputs include:
Forthcoming event:
Public Trade Policy Forum, Cape Town International Convention Centre, 9 November 2007
Jointly organised by SAIIA, BUSA, UCT Graduate School of Business, and Business Leadership South Africa this public forum will attempt to scrutinize South Africa’s trade policy measures proposed by the draft trade policy document. Tariff review, subsidies and transparency are among some of the issues that will be explored at the forum. Key stakeholders invited to the event include senior government officials; relevant organized business groupings; the media; and NGOs. The forum is scheduled to take place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town, South Africa on 09 November 2009.
Related event:
Recent: A Speaker's Meeting addressed by the Honourable Dr Rob Davies, Minister of Trade and Industry on Major Trade Policy Challenges Facing South Africa, 12 October 2009.
Download the Minister's Presentation
Related media coverage:
Davies says state will not hesitate to use tariffs to shield job-sensitive sectors
Strong rand not competitive
Must defend strategic industrial capacity
Our workers deserve respect
No sweatshop jobs for SA
Opinion editorials:
Promoting Dialogue on Trade Policy Reform in SA by Tsidiso Disenyana – can also be found at Business Report- Trade policy talk must be open Platform for debate
South Africa’s Trade Policy Trajectory by Tsidiso Disenyana
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
SAIIA Research Report, No.1, February 2009
Development through Trade Programme
Transport Services in SACU: Accelerating Harmonisation and Liberalisation
by Tsidiso Disenyana and Nkululeko Khumalo
- English [.pdf]
Services are without doubt a key driver of economic growth and fundamentally influence (or determine) the trade capacity of countries. Like many other World Trade Organisation (WTO) member states, Southern African Customs Union (SACU) countries recognise the importance of a more liberal services trade regime in enhancing the availability and quality of key services like communications, transport, energy, construction and financial services that are vital to economic growth and trade competitiveness.
Read more
SAIIA Occasional Paper, No.46, October 2009
Development through Trade Programme
Trade in Electricity Services in the Southern African Customs Union: Towards a Negotiating Strategy
by Tsidiso Disenyana & Cézanne Samuel
- English [.pdf]
The development of a country’s electricity sector is crucial for broader economic growth and economic and social development. The electricity sector in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) member states is facing chronic challenges, including lack of surplus capacity, and underdeveloped power transmission and distribution infrastructure, resulting in losses in production. Hence, electricity’s contribution to the high cost of doing business in the region is increasing.
Read more
Nordic Africa Institute Policy Notes: EPAs and the post-Lisbon Implementation Status by Nkululeko Khumalo and Fantu Mulleta.
The negotiations for Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) between African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and the European Union (EU) were launched in 2000. The talks are carried out in terms of the Cotonou Agreement, which seeks to replace the non-reciprocal export preferences ACP countries have had with the European Community (EC) with reciprocal free trade arrangements. These negotiations have been carried out on a regional basis since January 2008 in order to align the parties’ trade regime with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. Accordingly, a number of ACP countries initialled Interim Economic Partnership Agreement texts at the end of 2007. The IEPAs are a stopgap measure meant to prevent trade disruptions while negotiations on fully fledged EPAs continue. The second stage of negotiations, which will include services, investment, competition and government procurement, is expected to lead to the conclusion of fully fledged EPAs. This policy note seeks to provide a brief overview of the implementation status of the EPAs in selected African regions. The paper also looks at the impact of the Interim Economic Partnership Agreements (IEPAs) on the countries that initialled them and provides recommendations on how to ensure that the eventual full EPA agreements promote the interests of African countries.
Read more
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| Trade and Environment Conference |
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Hosted by SAIIA on the 26th-27th October 2009 in Pretoria, the conference focused on the tension in the economy-climate policy nexus with the aim of highlighting key competitive, technological and market issues that African countries need to take into account as they head to Copenhagen and weighing various policy arrangements in this context.
Read More.
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| Wits Business School/SAIIA Distinguished Lecture by Dr Marcus Noland on Managing the Global Economy in Turbulent Times: A view from Washington, 11 November 2007
Dr. Marcus Noland was recently appointed Deputy-Director of the Washington-based Petersen Institute for International Economics. The Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics is a private, non-profit, non-partisan research institution devoted to the study of international economic policy. Since 1981 the Institute has provided timely and objective analysis of, and concrete solutions to, a wide range of international economic problems. It is one of the very few economics think tanks that are widely regarded as "non-partisan" by the press and "neutral" by the US Congress and it is cited by the quality media more than any other such institution. The first comprehensive survey of over 5,000 such institutions in all countries recently ranked it the top think-tank in the world.
Roundtable on the WTO’s November Ministerial Conference: What Prospects for a Doha Deal? CSIR, 18 November 2009
Jointly hosted by SAIIA and the Institute for Global Dialogue this high level workshop is set against the backdrop of the WTO’s November Ministerial Conference. The workshop will consider three issues: longer-term reform of the multilateral trading system; the focus of the November Ministerial and prospects for Doha deal making; and potential impacts of a Doha compromise on industrial tariff cuts for South Africa and its SACU counterparts, especially with regard to the former’s industrial and development policies.
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| The Trade Knowledge Network (TKN) is collaboration of research and policy institutions in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas that are working to ensure that social development and environmental goals are equitable addressed in trade and investment policies'. Some of our recent publications include: |
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BACKGROUND AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Trade Perspectives is a quarterly update produced by the Development through Trade programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). Trade Perspectives aims to facilitate and broaden public dialogue on trade policy and trade negotiations. We hope to keep civil society groups, researchers, governments and development partners informed about issues relating to trade policy and trade negotiations.
Each quarter, we will feature our Publications, Events as well as Opinion Editorials and links to interesting, relevant new material. We hope that you will visit our site at Trade Perspectives to subscribe in order to continue receiving this newsletter, and look forward to hearing your views.
If you would like to submit an original, unpublished, trade-related manuscript for possible inclusion in the Newsletter series, please email tsidiso.disenyana@saiia.org.za
Opinions expressed in papers and articles are those of their authors, and not SAIIA.
We gratefully acknowledge the Australian Agency for International Development and the British High Commission, both of which has generously supported the Development through Trade Programme and this Newsletter series.
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