The Southern African Development Community needed to move faster to develop uniform standards to improve efficiencies for cross-border trade, South Africa’s minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula told delegates at Trade and Investment KwaZulu-Natal’s Export Week conference in Durban last week. Mbalula said the transport sector was the cornerstone of the success of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). But he said the potential of the transport sector to contribute more towards full integration of the region was constrained by serious operational and infrastructure inefficiencies. “We must deal with operational delays and congestion at the border crossings, which add to the inefficiencies of the crossborder transport system in general. We must move faster to establish a regional regulatory authority to enforce agreed harmonised standards,” Mbalula said. A positive move was that the SADC region was at an advanced stage of establishing the Regional Rail Safety Regulator (RRSR), with the support of the South African Rail Safety Regulator. Mbalula added that there was an urgent need to mobilise regional resources to modernise ports and improve turnaround times. “There are serious infrastructure backlogs that hinder efficient cross-border transportation systems. These manifest in the many missing links on continental rail corridors and poor port infrastructure,” Mbalula said. According to the African Development Bank, the continent has lost approximately 25% in potential economic growth over a period of 20 years due to the low investment in maintenance and infrastructure on the continent. He added that inefficiencies were also reflected in the high costs of berthing due to longer dwell times, by international standards. “There is also a need for us to look at our tariff regimes carefully to make ease of doing business improvements continent-wide,” Mbalula said. He added that locally the South African National Ports Regulator had already taken steps to address tariffs. He said the African Union had designated South Africa as the manufacturing hub for locomotives and its head of state had been assigned the responsibility of championing the North South Corridor (NSC), a multi-modal transport corridor connecting the continent from north down to the south, from Cape to Cairo. “A call for the private sector is to realise Africa’s potential and a call for our governments is to seek partnerships with the private sector in a win-win situation, placing our people and the environment first,” Mbalula said.
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There is a need for us to look at our tariff regimes carefully to make ease of doing business improvements continent-wide. – Fikile Mbalula