South Africa's Trade Policy and Southern and Eastern Africa: Focus on SACU and SADC

South Africa’s trade policy is generally more outward-oriented than that of its Southern and Eastern African neighbours. However, despite its very bold liberalisation commitments in its General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) offer in 1994, and its subsequent multilateral liberalisation track record, South Africa’s regional trade policy is characterised by a much less, in certain respects, liberal approach.

This issue of Trade Hot Topics presents a brief synopsis of South Africa’s trade policy in the last decade. It discusses the challenges to South Africa and the region in terms of the multiplicity of competing trade arrangements, and highlights considerations that developing nations of the region should be mindful of for future negotiations and trade arrangement reconfigurations.