Title: Does trade facilitation matter for South Africa's trade with SADC and the rest of the world?

Authors: Chukwuma Agu; Anthonia Achike

Addresses: Institute for Development Studies, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus, Nigeria. ' Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria

Abstract: In particular, countries of the South African Development Community (SADC) have been working to be fully integrated since the days of apartheid in South Africa. Given the positions of theory and official rhetoric, these countries' trade among themselves should have far outperformed their current levels. With bilateral and multilateral tariffs at historical lows given unilateral, bilateral and multilateral trade liberalisation, it is expected that trade among these countries should grow phenomenally. However, progress in trade facilitation, the process of removing the 'snags and stumps' and reducing transaction costs is generally low among African countries and even more so research on the subject matter for most African countries. This paper is therefore aimed at providing preliminary evidence on the implications of trade facilitation on overall intra group trade within SADC, with emphasis on South Africa's exports to the region and the rest of the world.

Keywords: trade facilitation; Africa; exports; SADC; Southern African Development Community; Angola; Botswana; Democratic Republic of the Congo; Lesotho; Malawi; Mauritius; Mozambique; Namibia; Swaziland; Tanzania; Zambia; Zimbabwe; South Africa; Seychelles; integration; apartheid; bilateral tariffs; multilateral tariffs; unilateral trade liberalisation; bilateral trade liberalisation; multilateral trade liberalisation; transaction costs; cost reduction; overall trade; intra group trade; public law; public policy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPLAP.2012.049336

International Journal of Public Law and Policy, 2012 Vol.2 No.4, pp.417 - 429

Published online: 30 Sep 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article