Regional Integration Agenda: The SADC Summit and the SADC FTA

Image: Flickr, GovernmentZA
Image: Flickr, GovernmentZA

This week as SADC heads of state gather in Johannesburg for the SADC Summit on 16-17 August much is at stake to boost closer political and economic integration in the region.

One of the points on the economic agenda is the relaunch of the SADC Free Trade Area by heads of state under the banner “SADC Free Trade Area for Growth, Development and Wealth Creation”. There is no doubt that the FTA is an important milestone in the economic integration of the region. However, eight years after it was first implemented much still has to be done to address the hurdles to trade and closer economic integration in the SADC community. SAIIA’s Development through Trade project has produced a number of cutting-edge surveys that highlights the barriers to closer economic cooperation from the perspective of business.

Trade Report No 21,· June 2008
Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade in Southern Africa: Towards a Measurement Approach
Costa Pierides

Trade Report No 20,· May 2008
The Cost of Non-tariff Barriers to Business along the North-South Corridor (South Africa-Zimbabwe) via Beit Bridge
A Preliminary Study
Gregory Mthembu-Salter

Trade Policy Briefing No 17, August 2007
Are natural advantages ever enough? Mozambican sugar’s uncertain future in a changing European policy environment
by Gilberto Rafael Biacuana

Trade Report No 16,· July 2007
Trade in Services: From controlling to managing the Movement of Persons in SADC
by Nkululeko Khumalo

Trade Policy Briefing No 16, July 2007
Malawi and the regional overlap problem: Trade policy options
by George Naphambo

South Africa’s International Trade Diplomacy: Implications for Regional Integration
(2006), Volume 1 in a Fredrich Ebert Foundation (Botswana) funded project entitled “Regional Integration in Southern Africa.”
Peter Draper (SAIIA), Mmatlou Kalaba (Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies), and Phil Alves (SAIIA)