ESWATINI’S STRATEGIC ECONOMIC DIPLOMACY ENHANCES TRADE

MBABANE - Southern African Research Foundation for Economic Development (SARFED) yesterday congratulated His Majesty King Mswatini III for having demonstrated consistency in maintaining bilateral diplomacy between Eswatini and its trade destinations.

This was mentioned by SARFED Regional Coordinator and economist Dr George H. Choongwa in a statement yesterday. Choongwa said Eswatini’s survival of the current global economic turmoil is much on its prudence on its economic diplomacy policy with other countries. He said as a pegged economy with South Africa, and member of several regional and international economic bodies like SACU, SADC and COMESA, the country must continue finding innovative and strategic areas for promoting and sustaining its economic diplomacy and foreign policy.

“Eswatini’s relationship with Zambia has huge potential for the country’s sustainability. The Government of Eswatini has proved to be one of the first African countries that have taken a prudent move towards strengthening its foreign policy with one of Africa’s fastest economically emerging countries like Zambia,” he said. The economist added that Eswatini and Zambia are part of the two critical regional bodies, namely SADC and COMESA, and the soon to be; COMESA-EAC-SADC tripartite agenda.  With the continued strengthening of bilateral relationship between the two countries, which were also geopolitically interlinked, the regional integration agenda can be facilitated for the benefit of the entire African populace.

Agenda

He said the visit of the Zambian Head of State to the country demonstrated a critical interest in identifying what can be termed as strategic fit in economic cooperation between the two States in terms of trade and investments. “The two countries have more than enough to offer towards each other, and the global at large. The Zambian New Deal Government is driven with ambitious socioeconomic agenda which Eswatini can take a leaf from,” he said. Choongwa mentioned that economic diplomacy between Eswatini and Zambia should not only be understood in a narrow perspective of promoting business, especially at the SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) scale where the potential for job creation is greater than for multinationals on the scale of foreign markets. He said the Eswatini-Zambia relationship was now beyond the corporate diplomacy to the level of supporting internationalisation of enterprises as a catalyst for sustainable economic growth for both countries.

Depression

“This comes at a time when the entire global economy is slowly drifting into depression of which only economic innovation is the only way out, the two countries have shown positive signs towards the solution,” mentioned the economist.

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