The Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) executive secretary, Paulina Elago, this week said the trade landscape in Sacu shows that trade has been increasing with the volume of intra-Sacu trade valued at N$185,6 billion in 2014 compared to N$98,9 billion in 2009 – increasing on average by 12% in the last five years.

“Therefore the increase in the volume of trade compels countries, around the world, to create a conducive environment for trade to thrive unhindered,” she said during a Sacu trade facilitation dialogue breakfast session with the private sector held in Windhoek.

Elago said as a result, international competition has increased and therefore said competitiveness will be measured on the speed, efficiency and the ease with which products move from one country to the other. “This is at the core of trade facilitation in general and in Sacu in particular,” she said.

Elago said trade facilitation is all about simplifying and harmonising trade procedures at point of entry into a country and exit.

She said governments and the private sector stand to benefit from trade facilitation as efficient border controls reduce instances of fraud and illegal entry of unwanted goods, whilst business can become more competitive as fast clearances will improve the speed within which their products would reach the final consumer.

Doing business

The World Bank Doing Business Survey of 2014 shows that import procedures, for containerised cargo, in the Sacu countries take on average 26 days (Botswana-35, Lesotho-33, Namibia-20, South Africa-21, and Swaziland 23).

This includes document preparation, customs clearance and technical control, ports and terminal handling and inland transportation handling.

“It is clear that there is a lot more to be done in this area through a regionally coordinated approach,” Elago said.

Sacu is implementing a Customs Modernisation project, in collaboration with the World Customs Organisation (WCO) funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).

Overhaul

In a paper delivered at the event, Namibia Customs and Excise commissioner Bevan Simataa said the commission has redeveloped and overhauled its customs management system to take into account modern system security, system scalability, system interoperability and connectivity, management and operational dashboard report, information and data exchange.

Simataa said the second component is commitment to make trade information available and accessible 24/7 notwithstanding the location or geography of a client, through establishing the Namibia Trade Information Portal.

The portal has among its key features the duty calculator, classifier tool and, import/export requirements, which allow the potential importer of products to Namibia to access information related to such product in a predictable manner.

Minister of finance Calle Schlettwein said in a speech read on his behalf by permanent secretary Ericah Shafudah there is need to elevate dialogue between the private sector and the government.

Namibia’s value of imports accounted for N$85,9 billion in 2014 compared to N$ 67,4 billion recorded in 2013, while the export value of goods accounted for only 49,3 billion in 2014.

“This underpins a stark imbalance between export and import products,” he said.

This has led the government to adopt the ‘Growth at Home strategy’ to stimulate growth of agriculture, mining, energy, manufacturing, construction, hospitality and tourism, transport and logistics, communications and financial services to enable Namibia to compete favourably globally and within the SACU region.