Davies to meet his British counterparts tomorrow
TRADE and Industry Minister Rob Davies is to meet British officials tomorrow in an attempt to roll over the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the Southern African Customs Union, Mozambique and the UK in order to avoid disruption of trade post-Brexit.
Davies said the country wanted to discuss duty free access for local products such as wine, automobiles, beef and fruit to the UK.
“We have been working on this agreement for some time,” Davies said.
Davies said if negotiations with the officials succeeded, an agreement would be ratified in Parliament next week. But he warned that if did not, negotiations could continue at a later date, adding that the trade issues with the UK and the EU would remain working, given the high level of uncertainty about the Brexit process.
On Tuesday the UK Parliament voted not to accept a proposed Brexit agreement between the EU and the UK. The UK is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29.
“In the fullness of time we might have a new EPA in place with the UK, but in the meantime we want the existing EPA to roll over so trade is not disrupted,” said Davies. If agreement is not reached on Friday, trade between South Africa and the UK would be on the basis of a schedule of import tariffs and quotas to the UK on 469 items, which was published by the UK government yesterday. Tariffs would apply for 12 months.
Davies said in terms of this list, most items the UK imports from South Africa would be duty free, but there might be issues with the proposal to apply 10 percent import tariffs on automobiles, beef, pork, sugar and poultry. For instance, the proposal for a 10 percent import tariff on fully assembled cars (not components) would represent a severe blow to the competitiveness of locally built vehicles exported to the UK, and further bilateral talks may become necessary for this, he said.
Trade talks are a two-way process. One of the biggest UK imports to South Africa was whisky, which was supplied to this country duty free – the World Trade Organisation tariff for whisky amounts to R4.50 a litre.