De Gucht, the EU's most senior trade representative, is scheduled to meet with Vice President Dr Ponatshego Kedikilwe and trade and industry minister, Dorcas Makgato-Malesu in two meetings set to last an hour-and-a-half collectively.In remarks made on Tuesday in Windhoek, Namibia, De Gucht hinted that agriculture could be a sore point in his efforts to seal a final Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the SADC, after a total 13 years of negotiations between the two regions. Like Botswana, Namibia is due to lose duty and quota-free access to the EU on October 1, 2014 at the expiry of an EU's market access regulation - a fact De Gucht highlighted in his Windhoek remarks.
Agricultural products are key exports to the EU for both countries, with Botswana's beef industry having been built around and sustained by lucrative supply contracts dating back to the 1970s."We still have some issues open for discussion...one of them is agricultural market access," he said."As I have said, we offer Namibia duty-free, quota-free access to our markets. But we also want this agreement to be balanced, at least to a certain extent, in return." "Therefore, the EU is asking the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) to put an improved offer on the table that I can bring back to the European Union's member states."
