NEDLAC FACILITATES INPUT ON TRADE OFFERS
Tripartite involvement in trade negotiations goesback to
pre-Nedlac days. One of the main achievements of Nedlac's
forerunner, theNational Economic Forum, was that it facilitated a
joint labour, business and governmentoffer to GATT in the last days
of the previous government. This meant that even before
thedemocratic elections, people like Alec Erwin, now Minister of
Trade and Industry, EbrahimPatel, Nedlac's labour convenor, and
Michael McDonald from business were involved inSouth Africa's trade
arena.
In January 1996, in preparation for the tradenegotiations with
the European Union, the Technical Sectoral Liaison Committee was
set upby the Trade and Industry Chamber of Nedlac. The aim of the
committeee is to provide aconsultative forum for government trade
negotiators to liaise with business and labourover technical and
detailed matters relating to the negotiations.
South Africa's initial offer to the EuropeanUnion was put
together in collaboration with Teselico. In September 1997 the
committeeundertook a detailed tariff analysis and consulted within
the business and labourconstituencies to identify sensitive
products, such as clothing and textiles and motorvehicles and
components, which could be adversely affected by tariff reductions.
Thisexercise resulted in a detailed tariff phase-down proposal
which was subsequentlypublished in the Government Gazette for
public comment. This formed the basis of the SouthAfrican tariff
offer to the EU. Teselico also made proposals on the trade related
andnon-trade issues such as labour standards, competition policy,
procurement policy,customs, standards, rules of origin and
non-tariff barriers to trade.
Teselico played an important role in gatheringinformation on the
rules of origin regime which would be practical for SA
compliance.Rules of origin specify how local content is determined.
It gives an indication as towhether manufactured exports to Europe
would benefit from the free trade agreement.Special workshops were
held to inform the South African community on rules of
originrequirements and to formulate SA's response to the EU
proposals.
Throughout the three years of negotiations,Teselico has provided
information and insights to assist the South African
tradenegotiators. Government has reported on developments in the
ongoing SA-EU negotiations toTeselico and the committee has
commented on and evaluated the proposals arising from
thenegotiations. Teselico has held 33 meetings on the SA-EU trade
negotiations.
While business and labour have reservations aboutcertain aspects
of the deal with the EU, such as the exclusion of many
agriculturalproducts in the EU's offer to South Africa, they have
commended the governmentnegotiators on their tough stance in
response to intransigence by the EU in the concludingphase of the
negotiations.
While the EU negotiations are in their finalstages, Teselico has
begun to focus its attention on the SADC negotiations for a
freetrade area which are expected to be concluded before the end of
the year. The experienceof the EU negotiations has sensitised the
Nedlac parties on how to effectively communicatewith their
constituencies over trade matters. This is expected to result in
moremeaningful consultations over SADC.
Teselico has made inputs on the SA tariff offerto SADC which was
published for comment in September 1998. Since the beginning of
theyear, the Nedlac constituencies have intensified consultations
over the SADC FTA. Themultilateral negotiations for a SADC FTA are
conducted per sector and Teselico will meetprior to each round of
negotiations to discuss the South African mandate and make inputson
sensitive products and trade related issues. These meetings will
inc representationfrom sector based organisations and associations
which are constituents of the organisations represented at
Nedlac.