Ramaphosa Speaks at the Southern African Customs Union Summit

On Thursday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa made a speech at the 8th Southern African Customs Union (SACU) summit in the Kingdom of Eswatini.

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The President's working visit to the SACU Heads of State and Government Summit took place at the invitation of SACU's Chairman King Mswati III.

The South African leader noted that the SACU Strategic Plan, adopted in June 2022, is the founding document that translates the aspirations of the union into reality, as reported by the South African government's official website.

"We must work to deepen regional integration in the customs union and purposefully strengthen ties among the five member states. South Africa believes that spatial development initiatives, industrialisation, export and investment promotion and regional production linkages will enable our countries to diversify their economies. It will also enable us to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the African Continental Free Trade Area," Ramaphosa said. 

"For this to happen, we must prioritise economic infrastructure, especially building renewable energy capacity, roads, railways, ports and airports, telecommunications and water infrastructure. We must discuss what we can do to diversify our economies, increase intra-African trade and deepen integration. We are well placed to use our collective revenues to support industrial capacity and infrastructure development within the union," he added.

Ramaphosa said that currently Africa's share of world trade is only three per cent. The customs union should help significantly increase African trade in goods and services.

"We will achieve this if we have clearly articulated programmes, sufficient resources, robust governance and commitment to the implementation of the Strategic Plan," he stressed.

The South African Customs Union is one of the oldest customs unions in the world. It was established in 1910 under the Customs Union Agreement between the Union of South Africa, the High Commission Territories of Bechuanaland, Basutoland and Swaziland.

The SACU has features that distinguish it from many regional groupings of developing countries. The states of the customs union (except Botswana) are part of the Single Monetary Area, which was established in 1986.

Within the monetary area, there is free movement of capital, so member states have direct access to the South African capital market, which is the most developed in Africa.