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EU Seeks To Develop Trade With Africa,
by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton called for a continued push on trade
facilitation to help developing countries, especially in Africa, reap the benefits
of global trade.
In remarks delivered to a conference in Rome entitled 'The role of Trade Facilitation:
promoting market integration with a focus on Africa', Commissioner Ashton argues
that "cumbersome, outdated bureaucracies and infrastructure stifle trade
and entrepreneurship, discourage investment and encourage corruption."
Small and medium-sized enterprises are particularly vulnerable, she added.
The solution, according to Ashton, is for developed and developing countries
to work together to simplify trade procedures, which will reduce delays, cut
costs, improve the services offered to consumers, and help many companies get
into overseas markets in the first place.
On the multilateral front, the EU supports the development of a more binding
rules-based approach in the World Trade Organization (WTO), with trade facilitation
also a prominent element in the Doha Round of world trade talks. African business
has joined European business in calling for an ambitious Doha agreement.
The European Commission estimates that a trade facilitation agreement in WTO
could bring trade gains equal to those of industrial goods tariff cuts and services
liberalisation combined in the Doha Round.
In parallel to the WTO work, the EU is also pursuing trade facilitation in
regional and bilateral initiatives, including with the USA, South Africa, China,
Asean, Mercosur and ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) countries, Ashton said.
The EU is complementing the efforts of developing countries to improve the
situation through Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with African, Caribbean
and Pacific countries. EPAs aim amongst other things to reinforce cooperation
in the area of customs and trade facilitation. In Africa, a stated goal is to
promote harmonisation of customs legislation and procedures to improve trade
between the EU and Africa.
Ashton travelled to Southern Africa in February to hold talks with key government
leaders with a view to moving forward bilateral and region-to-region trade relationships.
A key objective of these discussions is an EPA between the EU and Southern African
countries.
EPA Negotiations with members of the Southern African Development Community
(SADC) group of countries were launched in 2004.
In 2007 South Africa joined as an official member of the "SADC EPA"
Group. An interim EPA was initialled at the end of 2007 with Botswana, Lesotho,
Namibia, Swaziland and Mozambique. Angola can join the agreement, but as a Least
Developed Country in the meantime maintains full market access through the EU's
Everything But Arms provision.
The EU and South Africa signed the Trade, Development and Co-operation Agreement
(TDCA) in 1999. The objective of the TDCA is to create a free-trade area between
South Africa and the EU over a period of 12 years, with the EU opening its market
at a faster pace. At the same time, the Southern African Customs Union, consisting
of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland now provides for a
deeper level of integration amongst some of the countries of the SADC grouping.
One of the key challenges in implementing an EPA with SADC is to reconcile these
various trade relationships.
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