Common Contracts
1 similar Economic Partnership Agreement contracts
Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) EPA Group1Economic Partnership Agreement • June 7th, 2016
An agreement oriented towards development Asymmetric trade opening Under the SADC EPA, the EU will guarantee Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, and Swaziland 100% free access to its market. The EU has also fully or partially removed customs duties on 98.7% of imports coming from South Africa. The SADC EPA states do not have to respond with the same level of market openness. Instead, they can keep tariffs on products sensitive to international competition. This is sometimes called asymmetric liberalisation. For that reason the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) removes customs duties on only around 86% of imports from the EU and Mozambique only 74%. Outside EPAs, the EU has never agreed before to such a degree of asymmetry in any free trade agreement. Safeguardson imports The EPA contains a large number of "safeguards" or safety valves. EPA countries can activate these and increase the import duty in case imports from the EU increase so much or so quickly that they threaten to
