After ten years of preparations and negotiations, the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the Southern African Development Community (SADC) EPA Group and the European Union (EU) was finally 'initialed' by our Chief Negotiators on 15 July 2014 in Pretoria. The initialing of the Agreement signals that the negotiations are concluded.
The timing is significant because it pre-empts the 1st October 2014 deadline imposed by the EU after which Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland would have lost preferential access to the EU market for their exports of beef, fish and sugar, on which their economies depend heavily. The EU has assured us all that the act of initialing ensures that the current market access will continue until the agreement enters into force.
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