LEONARD NEILL
RULES OF ORIGIN involving mainly the clothing and textile industries remain the major obstacles to the final implementation of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) free trade agreement.
But everything should be in place for full operation by the scheduled date of September 1, says Iddi Simba, chairman of the SADC committee of members for trade and industry.
This follows a series of meetings which the representatives of the various countries held in Pretoria last week where a programme was formulated for the establishment of a common market in the SADC region.
The previously scheduled date of January 1 this year could not be met because of disagreements on certain issues relating to the clothing and textile industries. Most of these matters have now been resolved, says Simba and all the remaining ones will be addressed before August.
Two options for acquiring origin for clothing and textiles have now been provided. Instead of having only the two-stage rule which requires exporting countries to process yarn into fabric and then turn this into clothing before exporting to other SADC countries, there will now be the option of a one-stage process of finished articles for the least developed nations.
Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique fall into this category and will have to be allocated quotas on products exported by them to countries in the Southern African Customs Union.
A clothing and textle committee has been established to continue negotiations on outstanding issues.
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