The Economic Impact of Epas in SADC Countries

WTO Staff Working Paper No. ERSD-2005-04

41 Pages Posted: 17 May 2006

See all articles by Alexander Keck

Alexander Keck

World Trade Organization (WTO)

Roberta Piermartini

World Trade Organization (WTO) - Economic Research and Analysis Division

Date Written: August 2005

Abstract

The Cotonou Agreement introduces new fundamental principles with respect to trade between the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries relative to the Lomé Convention: in particular non-reciprocal preferential market access for ACP economies will only last until 1 January 2008. After that date, it will be replaced by a string of Economic Partnership Agreements meant to progressively liberalise trade in a reciprocal way. The progressive removal of barriers to trade is expected to result in the establishment of Free Trade Agreements between the EU and ACP regional groups in accordance with the relevant WTO rules and help further existing regional integration efforts among the ACP.

In this paper, an applied general equilibrium model (15 regions, 9 sectors) is used to simulate the impact of EPAs for countries of the Southern African Development Community. The standard Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model has been extended to include the elimination of textile quotas, EU enlargement to 25 members as well as tax revenue sharing and a common external tariff among Southern African Customs Union countries. A number of comparisons between different scenarios are undertaken, in particular: (i) the EPA scenario is compared to the multilateral liberalization scenario; (ii) SADC liberalization with the EU only is compared to a scenario with simultaneous regional integration among African economies and to the case of the EU also signing an FTA with Mercosur; and (iii) a complete reduction of import barriers is contrasted with partial liberalization (i.e. only 50 per cent tariff reductions in agriculture) and with full trade liberalization that includes the elimination of subsidies. The issue of tariff revenue loss is also addressed and the required tax replacement is calculated. Selected experiments are re-run under an unemployment closure.

Simulation results show that EPAs with the EU are welfare-enhancing for SADC overall, leading also to substantive increases in real GDP. For most countries further gains may arise from intra-SADC liberalization. The possibility of the EU entering an FTA with other countries, such as Mercosur, reduces estimated gains, but they still remain largely positive. Similarly, estimated gains need to be revised downwards if agriculture liberalization is not as far reaching as a reduction of import barriers for manufactures. At the sectoral level, the largest expansions in SADC economies take place in the animal agriculture and processed food sectors, while manufacturing becomes comparatively less attractive following EU-SADC liberalization. Interestingly, multilateral liberalization would instead foster some of the manufacturing sectors (textile and clothing and light manufacturing). Results also show the need for the SACU tariff pooling formula to be adjusted to reflect new import patterns as tariffs are removed.

Keywords: Cotonou Agreement, SADC, regionalism, CGE modelling

JEL Classification: F15, F17, O55

Suggested Citation

Keck, Alexander and Piermartini, Roberta, The Economic Impact of Epas in SADC Countries (August 2005). WTO Staff Working Paper No. ERSD-2005-04 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=901621 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.901621

Alexander Keck (Contact Author)

World Trade Organization (WTO) ( email )

154 Rue de Lausanne
CH-1211 Geneva 21
Switzerland

Roberta Piermartini

World Trade Organization (WTO) - Economic Research and Analysis Division ( email )

Rue de Lausanne 154
CH-1211 Geneva
Switzerland
+41 22 739 5492 (Phone)
+41 22 739 5762 (Fax)

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