{"id":69082,"date":"2016-05-02T13:28:13","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T11:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/supporting-economic-development-in-southern-africa-german-government-backs-eu-economic-partnership-agreement-with-sadc\/"},"modified":"2016-05-02T13:28:13","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T11:28:13","slug":"supporting-economic-development-in-southern-africa-german-government-backs-eu-economic-partnership-agreement-with-sadc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/supporting-economic-development-in-southern-africa-german-government-backs-eu-economic-partnership-agreement-with-sadc\/","title":{"rendered":"Supporting Economic Development in Southern Africa \u2013 German Government Backs EU Economic Partnership Agreement with SADC"},"content":{"rendered":"

WINDHOEK, Namibia, May 2, 2016\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ — <\/span><\/p>\n

On 27th April 2016, the German Federal Cabinet approved the signing of the Economic Partnership\u00a0Agreement (EPA) of the European Union with the SADC member states.<\/p>\n

\n

The Agreement will guarantee permanent tax and quota free access to the European market for\u00a0products from Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Swaziland. South Africa, as the most\u00a0developed country in the region, will receive extended market access to the European market. In\u00a0return, the above mentioned countries are supposed to open their markets for about 80% of\u00a0European products over the course of 12 years. As already practiced in other EPAs, products that\u00a0are locally produced or have added value for the local economy, will remain permanently protected.<\/p>\n

As an additional protection mechanism, the SADC-EPA countries may defer the liberalization of\u00a0specific products or increase customs duties, if noticeable damage of the local industry is looming.<\/p>\n

Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Dr. Gerd M\u00fcller said: \u201cThis\u00a0agreement will create new opportunities for economically and socially sustainable development in\u00a0Southern Africa. Trade barriers will be reduced. This will, for example, make it easier for South\u00a0African or Namibian farmers to offer their agricultural products to the EU market. The same applies\u00a0to processed products. Thus we create the conditions for added value in these countries. Only 17%\u00a0of trade is inner-African while inside the EU it is 45%. We want to help our African partner\u00a0countries to become more competitive, so that they can participate successfully in the world\u2019s\u00a0markets. This is an important requirement for a region in Africa whose economy is growing\u00a0dynamically.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the reduction of trade barriers, the agreement contains binding environmental and\u00a0social standards and gives the European Commission the possibility to demand certain human rights\u00a0standards. The agreement is therefore an important instrument in development cooperation for the\u00a0further cooperation with SADC-EPA countries. The signing by the EU is planned during the session\u00a0of the Foreign Affairs Council on the 23rd of May 2016 in Brussels and by SADC on the 10th of\u00a0June 2016 in Gaborone. When the signing process is completed, the EPA will be presented to the\u00a0German Federal Parliament for approval. Thus, the German Federal Government has done all that is\u00a0necessary for the agreement to come into force in all SADC member states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WINDHOEK, Namibia, May 2, 2016\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ — On 27th April 2016, the German Federal Cabinet approved the signing of the Economic Partnership\u00a0Agreement (EPA) of the European Union with the SADC member states. The Agreement will guarantee permanent tax and quota free access to the European market for\u00a0products from Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[428,4585,830],"class_list":{"0":"post-69082","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africa","8":"tag-apo","9":"tag-news","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}