02 Jul 2018

The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) has made strides in achieving aspirations of regional integration in Southern Africa, the incoming SACU chairperson and Lesotho’s prime minister, Dr Thomas Thabane has said.

Delivering a vote of thanks at the just ended sixth SACU Heads of State and Government Summit in Gaborone recently, he said he would ensure that Lesotho continued to pursue and implement programmes that would deepen integration agenda and achieve goals of industrialisation for further development of economies that would impact on lives of the SACU citizenry.

“I commit to ensuring timely implementation of the planned activities during Lesotho’s tenure and I look forward to working tirelessly with SACU member states,” he said.

He further noted that SACU ministerial work programme had far-reaching implications and would ultimately contribute towards the improvement of economies of SACU members states.

Dr Thabane said based on their discussions and the progress report received from the council of ministers, he was pleased to note that establishment of regional SACU financing mechanism for infrastructure projects and industrialisation was one of SACU’s top priorities.

SACU executive secretary, Ms Paulina Elago said SACU had made progress in a number of areas such as trade facilitation and negotiations.

She said in the area of trade facilitation, SACU was implementing ar egional customs modernisation programme aimed at facilitating a cross-border trade to specifically create a conducive environment for traders in the region.

This, she said would benefit the small and medium enterprises that were involved in international trade and more so for the landlocked countries who depended largely on transit trade for their livelihood.

Ms Elago said through the programme, it was expected that there would be enhanced efficiencies on cross-border trade resulting from reductions in the time spent by the traders at the borders.

“Governments and private sector stand to benefit from trade facilitation as border controls also reduce instances of fraud and illegal entry on unwanted goods,” she said.

On the trade front, she said SACU member states were pursuing a trade negotiations agenda with third parties as a collective bloc with Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC) and SADC Tripartite Free Trade Area and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement as well as UK to roll over the EU-SADC Economic Partnership Agreement to ensure that there was no disruption when the UK exited the EU.

Ms Elago further emphasised that SACU regional integration could be achieved through coordination of policies aimed at promoting industrialisation and large-scale investments, which she said would provide an impetus for economic growth and enhancing the production base for the region. ENDS