The Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) and the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) have reaffirmed their commitment towards the full implementation of the SACU-MERCOSUR Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) signed in 2016.
This comes as senior trade officials of the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) and the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) held their 2nd Meeting of the Joint Administrative Committee (JAC) under the framework of the SACU-MERCOSUR Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) last week.
The virtual meeting was co-chaired by Niki Kruger, Chief Director of Trade Negotiations from the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition of South Africa on behalf of SACU, and Counsellor Clarissa Nina, Chief Negotiator of the Brazilian Presidency Pro Tempore of MERCOSUR.
“Despite the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Parties reaffirmed their commitment to the full implementation of the PTA. In this regard, the two Parties further agreed to keep the momentum through facilitating the Business Community in MERCOSUR and SACU to leverage on the benefits created by the PTA. They further undertook to deepen their partnership in the Spirit of South-South Cooperation,” SACU Executive Secretary, Paulina Elago said.
The JAC is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the PTA.
The SACU-MERCOSUR PTA is a limited-scope Agreement which aims to promote trade between MERCOSUR and the SACU regions, and offers tariff preferences on approximately 1000 tariff lines from each side with the Margins of Preference ranging between 10% and 100 %.
SACU is a trade block made up of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland, while MERCOSUR is made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
