ESWATINI CONCERNED ABOUT SA PLANS

MBABANE – The country has raised a concern regarding the tone of the Sectoral Master Plans and the implementation of Trade Policy Directives that are coming from the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition in South Africa.

The plans relate to the sugar and textile industries. Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade Manqoba Khumalo registered the concerns during a recent virtual meeting in a bid to ensure that the neighbouring country’s plans do not affect Eswatini investors and employment. Minister Khumalo was addressing his Southern African Customs Union (SACU) counterparts, who included South Africa’s Ebrahim Patel and Finance Minister Tito Mboweni.

Minister Khumalo made it known that two industries were the largest employers in the private sector of Eswatini and were contributing significantly to the Eswatini economy in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), public revenues, export earnings, social services in the form of education, healthcare, housing, water, sanitation and recreational facilities, poverty alleviation, rural development and environmental preservation.
“The introduction of the South African Sugar Cane Value Chain Master Plan states that Minister Patel in his Budget Vote Speech on July 11, 2019 said these master plans “will include assisting companies to improve their industrial capacities and sophistication focusing more on export orientation, and reclaiming domestic market space lost to imports.  Consequently, this plan under the section ‘Industry in Crisis’ refers to a ‘perfect storm’, with three dynamics, which are driving the accelerated decline in the Southern Africa industry.

Exports

“Specific to Eswatini is the second dynamic, which states ‘Increasing volumes of low-prices tariff-free exports from Eswatini into the SACU market (currently estimated at 500 000 tonnes per annum). This is a consequence of the loss in value experienced by Eswatini producers from their preferential European Union quotas which were abolished on September 30, 2017; the tariff-free access to the SA market, the relative cost advantage of that emaSwati producers enjoyed over South African competitors allowing them to price below local producers and thus taking a significant share,” highlighted the minister.

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