Bilateral Free Trade Agreements and Customs Unions: The Impact of the EU Republic of South Africa Free Trade Agreement on Botswana

摘要

The Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) has five members, the Republic of South Africa (RSA), and Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland, the so-called BLNS countries, and is the world's longest-standing customs union (established in 1910). For most of SACU's existence the BLNS countries were colonies. A legacy of those political arrangements was that SACU's trade relations were determined, almost unilaterally, by the RSA. This situation was at least partly rectified by negotiations over the SACU agreement during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since the late 1980s SACU's trade barriers have been severely reduced, and hence the tariff revenues received by the member states under SACU's tariff revenue-sharing formula have also declined. The BLNS governments were historically dependent on tariff revenue, and although the importance of tariff revenues has declined for Botswana and Swaziland, the governments of Lesotho and Namibia have more limited alternative revenue-raising capacities.