TUESDAY, 1.00PM:
SOUTH Africa and its Southern African Customs Union partners meet in Gaborone, Botswana on Tuesday in a bid to restart failed talks over a revamped customs union.
The talks, initiated in 1994 by the South African government, collapsed after members failed to agree on the institutional framework and polices which would form the backbone of the new union. Both of these issues will be discussed on Tuesday.
South Africa, the current administrator of the union, has made it clear that it refuses to moot a multinational body if it is not underpinned by clear industrial, agricultural and tariff policies.
Talks one year on however, do not promise to resolve the long impasse, nor the continual spats between member nations. The union now faces the new threat of free-trade talks between South Africa and the European Union, and a general fall in tariff levels which threatens to reduce significantly revenue to the common customs and excise duty pool.