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1500 GENEVA TIME ( 1300 GMT ) 25 APRIL 2003
PRESS/TPRB/213
25 April 2003
(03-2198)
TRADE POLICY REVIEW: SOUTHERN AFRICAN CUSTOMS UNION
Continued economic reforms would attract more foreign
investment
A report on the trade policies and practices of the Southern African Customs Union (Botswana,
Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland), was released on 25 April by the WTO Secretariat.
The report says that the since the last Review of their trade policies in 1998, SACU countries have
continued their economic reform programmes, where trade and investment liberalization haveplayed key roles. However, simplification of the tariff structure is needed the report indicates.
SACU is the oldest customs union in the world. A re-negotiation of the SACU Agreement was
concluded in 2002, but it still has to be ratified by all parties. The 2002 SACU Agreement, the
report also says, provides for a more democratic institutional structure; a dispute settlement
mechanism; the requirement to have common policies on industrial development, agriculture,competition, and unfair trade practices; and a new system regarding the common revenue pool
and sharing formula. It is hoped that, once in force, the new SACU Agreement, combined with
multilateral trade liberalization and outward-orientation, will help SACU countries to foster theirintegration into the world economy.
The WTO report, along with the policy statement of the Governments of the Southern African
Customs Union, will serve as a basis for the second Trade Policy Review (TPR) of SACU by the
Trade Policy Review Body of the WTO on 23 and 25 April 2003.
The following documents are available in MS Word format on the WTO web-site. They can be
downloaded at http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/tp213e.htm
• Secretariat report
> Contents and summary observations
> Economic environment> Trade policy regime: framework and objectives
> Trade policies and practices by measure
> Trade policies by sector> Appendix tables
• Government report
• Chairperson’s concluding remarks
• Minutes of the meeting (available approximately six weeks after the meeting).PRESS/TPRB/213
Page 2 of 2
Note
Trade Policy Reviews are an exercise, mandated in the WTO agreements, in which member
countries’ trade and related policies are examined and evaluated at regular intervals. Significant
developments that may have an impact on the gl obal trading system are also monitored. For each
review, two documents are prepared: a policy statement by the government of the member under
review, and a detailed report written independently by the WTO Secretariat. These two documents
are then discussed by the WTO’s full membership in the Trade Policy Review Body (TPRB). Thesedocuments and the proceedings of the TPRB’s meetings are publishe d shortly afterwards.
Print copies of the TPR publications are available for sale from the WTO Secretariat, Centre William
Rappard, 154 rue de Lausanne, 1211 Genève 21 and through the on-line bookshop at
https://secure.vtx.ch/shop/boutiques/wto_index_boutique.html  or follow this path :
www.wto.org >resources > publications > trade policy reviews
The TPR publications are also available from our co-publisher Bernan Press , 4611-F Assembly
Drive, Lanham, MD 20706-4391, United States
Next reviews:
New Zealand : 12, 14 May 2003
Morocco : 16, 18 June 2003
For a full list of previous trade policy reviews and the full programme of future reviews go to
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/tpr_e.htm#reviewsor follow this path : www.wto.org > trade topics > trade policy reviews
END