The EU is a promoter of FTAs, as part of broader agreements, with non-European parties. Over the last two decades a few trends have thereby been observed: the growing scope of the new generation FTAs covering more and more non-tariff issues (FDI, IPRs, services), including issues not dealt with at the WTO; the growing contestation [...]

The Swedish National Board of Trade has organized two one-year capacity building programmes during 2011-2012, in the areas of Rules of Origin and Trade Facilitation. The programmes are directed toward the SACU countries. In November 2011, a two weeks training were conducted in Stockholm, Sweden in the respective subject area. In total, 29 policy-makers, trade [...]

tralac is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.  The 2012 Annual Conference, held on 19-20 April in Cape Town, South Africa, provided a special occasion to review the trade agenda of east and southern Africa. As has been the case in recent years, the interesting trade developments are on the regional trade agenda, rather than [...]

On 5 December 2011 tralac, in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), participated in the Durban Trade and Climate Change Symposium organised by the ICTSD, World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Department of Trade and Industry of South Africa (Dti) at the Southern Sun North Beach Hotel in Durban. The two-day symposium aimed to [...]

tralac’s Annual Conference took place in Cape Town, South Africa on 8-9 September 2011.  The keynote presentation was by Patrick Low, Chief Economist at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The WTO’s 2011 World Trade Report focuses on the WTO and preferential trade agreements (PTAs).  Patrick provided an overview of key trends in PTAs; the reasons [...]

Click here to download the Annual Conference REPORT. Click here to listen to the speakers’ presentations in podcast format. Opening Remarks by Trudi Hartzenberg “This multi-stakeholder forum provides an opportunity to engage in debate and dialogue on the trade agenda of countries in East and Southern Africa, with a strong focus on regional integration. Regional [...]

In 2006 tralac launched a postgraduate programme to build trade law and policy capacity, particularly in African governments.  The programme is presented in collaboration with the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, which has recently been ranked by the Financial Times among the top five Business Schools based in emergent markets, which includes [...]

The tralac Annual Conference took place on 8-9 September 2011, in Cape Town, South Africa. Opening Remarks by Trudi Hartzenberg “This multi-stakeholder forum provides an opportunity to engage in debate and dialogue on the trade agenda of countries in East and Southern Africa, with a strong focus on regional integration. Regional integration has featured very [...]

Tralac will collaborate with the Swedish Board of Trade in offering the following two training programmes for SACU countries: 1. Training Programme on Trade Facilitation Further details and the application form are available at: www.kommers.se/tptf11 2. Training Programme on Rules of Origin Further details and the application form are available at: www.kommers.se/tproo11

tralac collaborated with the South African Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry to present a workshop on developments in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU).  Members of this Portfolio Committee, as well as the Portfolio Committee on International Cooperation and Development, as well as Economic Development participated in this workshop.  Please click on this [...]

Capacity building at tralac: Geek week outcome Report by Ron Sandrey (tralac Associate) As a part of the tralac-NAMC capacity building exercise Geek week was held at Rhodes University during the last few days in August and the first few days in September. It was attended by three persons from dti, two from the National [...]

During the week of 6 – 10 December 2010, tralac and the Department of Trade and Industry’s (dti) conducted a trade data analysis session focussing on preparing market access offers when negotiating preferential trade agreements. The core focus of the Geek week is to provide participants with the basic skills needed when analysing trade data [...]

Tralac recently attended a meeting organised by the Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) from 25-26 November 2010 in Pretoria, South Africa. The objective of the meeting was to share the findings of four studies conducted on the cotton sector and discuss the status of cotton associations in Southern Africa. The first study used [...]

Friedrich Ebert Stiftung South Africa/WTO Regional Dialogue on “Current and Future Challenges for the Multilateral Trading System – Perspectives from Southern Africa”  Cape Town, 15- 18 November 2010 Civil society, business and media participants come from the following countries:  Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe.  Agenda items included: Introduction to the [...]

Training programme for SADC Legal Staff at the SADC Tribunal in Windhoek, Namibia, 18-19 November 2010 Trudi Hartzenberg and Professor Gerhard Erasmus (tralac Associate) were resource persons at a recent TradeCOM-funded  training programme for the SADC Legal Staff, at the SADC Tribunal in Windhoek, Namibia.   They covered, amongst other topics, WTO Rules for regional trade [...]

30 October 2010.  The WTO is currently running a Regional Trade Policy Course for Anglophone countries.  The course is taking place at the University of Swaziland, in Manzini, Swaziland.    Trudi Hartzenberg with course participants

tralac conducted a Training Programme for Senior Officials from the Ministry of East Africa Community Affairs (MEACA) in Kampala, Uganda from 4-7 October 2010. The programme, Regional Integration in East Africa, focused on the integration agenda of the East African Community (including the establishment of the East Africa Customs Union, and the Common Market) as [...]