The Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Eswatini Cleopas Sipho Dlamini, as the current chair of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), officially announced the finalisation of the SACU Tariff Offer on 18 February 2023.
The announcement was made during the 36th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Dlamini reiterated SACU’s commitment to Africa’s integration and specifically the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The submission of the Tariff Schedule speaks to that commitment with the view to ensuring that the SACU business community leverage on the benefits of the AfCFTA.
Concomitantly, Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi, President of Botswana deposited the instruments for ratification of the AfCFTA. Following Botswana’s submission, all SACU member states have now ratified the agreement establishing the AfCFTA. SACU submitted an initial Tariff Offer in November 2020, in preparation for the commencement of trading in January 2021 which needed further work to comply with the agreed modalities. Subsequently, the region worked tirelessly to meet the threshold of 90% of products to be liberalised. This process has now been completed as noted by the 11th Meeting of AfCFTA Council of Ministers responsible for Trade and Industry held from 11 to 12 February 2023, in Gaborone, Botswana.
The Tariff Offer of 7111 tariff lines, which represents 90% of the SACU Tariff Book in line with the Agreed Modalities for Tariff Liberalisation, was submitted to the AfCFTA Secretariat on 13 February 2023 for verifications.
“The SACU Secretariat is currently working in close collaboration with the AfCFTA Secretariat to facilitate the completion of technical verification of the offer. SACU anticipates that this process will be finalised soonest to facilitate the implementation of the agreement. The implementation of the AfCFTA is one of the priority areas in the SACU strategic plan. Therefore, SACU is also committed to ensuring that the African Union theme of the year 2023, which is ‘The Year of AfCFTA: Acceleration of the African Continental Free Trade Area Implementation’ is realised,” stated SACU Executive Secretary Thabo David Khasipe.