Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies
Photo by: Creamer Media
South Africa fully supports the proposed African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) signed by 44 African countries in Kigali, Rwanda, last week, but Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies said the “high bar” set by South Africa’s legal framework made it impossible for the country to sign an agreement that was not yet complete.
Speaking in Pretoria on Monday, Davies noted that the 250-page general agreements had not been accompanied by a tariff schedule, nor several other annexes and appendices that would be required before South Africa entered into a new trade agreement.
For this reason, President Cyril Ramaphosa had signed a declaration, stating that South Africa would indeed become a signatory once the legal and other instruments associated with AfCFTA were processed and ratified by South African stakeholders and Parliament.
Davies likened the agreement to a “circuit board” that provided a good framework, but which lacked the various components required for full implementation.
However, he stressed that South Africa remained an “active participant” in the AfCFTA process, as well as in pursuing greater economic integration of a continent that already had more than a billion citizens and a combined gross domestic product of $3.3-trillion.
He also underlined progress being made in implementing the so-called trilateral free trade area (T-FTA), involving countries from the Southern African Development Community, the East Africa Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.
He indicated that T-FTA talks were being pursued incrementally with those countries or blocs ready to sign agreements with the Southern African Customs Union.
Progress with the EAC bloc had stalled towards the end of 2017, as a result of political developments in Kenya, but an agreement had been reached during a Trade Ministers meeting in Kigali to “put this process back on track”.
Davies expected negotiations to be concluded with EAC in May, after which the focus would turn to Egypt.
“We consider the tariff schedule discussions and the framework of the T-FTA to be extremely relevant and also very much in line with the overall framework of the AfCFTA.”
These regional agreements would not be unravelled in favour of a larger continental deal, Davies explained. Instead, they would form part of the process of building an integrated African market.