eBusiness Weekly
Tawanda Musarurwa Senior Business Reporter
Zimbabwe and the European Union (EU) yesterday commenced negotiations on a new Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), which is expected to further enhance trade ties.
The current EPA is now in its 8th year of implementation and a comprehensive agreement would boost bilateral trade and investment flows, improve the business and investment climate and stimulate Zimbabwe’s economy by diversifying exports to the EU.
Other Eastern and Southern African countries (ESA) that have commenced the same negotiations are; Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles.
In a statement yesterday, the EU said the new negotiations are aimed at broadening the scope of the EPA beyond trade in goods towards a more comprehensive partnership that also covers trade related areas such as services, investment, trade and sustainable development.
“Given the positive results generated by the current agreement, now in its 8th year of implementation, the five countries have declared their readiness to move beyond trade in goods, towards a more comprehensive agreement. The EU has welcomed this step, especially in the context of the Africa-Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investment and Jobs,” said the EU.
“Since the initial agreement started to apply in 2012, exports of goods from the five ESA countries to the EU have increased by almost a quarter, reaching nearly €2,8 billion in 2018. European businesses are also increasingly investing in the region.
“The new agreement should cover other important trade related areas and trade related rules, such as services, investment, technical barriers to trade, intellectual property rights as well as trade and sustainable development.”
The EU is an important trade partner for Zimbabwe and the largest export market for Africa.
The new EPA talks came at the behest of the four ESA states (Mauritius, Madagascar, Seychelles and Zimbabwe-Comoros joined earlier in February), who in 2017 requested the EU to start discussing the possible extension of the interim Economic Partnership Agreement (iEPA) beyond the currently covered market access for goods and development cooperation.
The aim was to include new trade-related areas and rules as provided for in the rendezvous clause foreseen in Article 53 of the EPA, also known as the “deepening process”.
EPAs are trade and development co-operation agreements that provide duty-free quota-free access to the EU market based on favourable rules of origin for the partner countries.
They support export diversification, competitiveness and promote creation of local value chains.
