Zuma back from Euro-African tour

13 November 2015 - 12:51 By TMG Digital Reporters

President Jacob Zuma returned to Pretoria on Thursday after a tour that took him to Germany‚ Angola‚ Tanzania and Namibia. In Namibia he attended Thursday’s official opening ceremony of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) Headquarters.Botswana‚ Namibia‚ Swaziland‚ South Africa and Lesotho are members of the Customs Union. SACU has been in existence since 1910‚ thus making it the oldest Customs Union in the world.Zuma is currently the chair of the union.The Agreement establishing the Union provides for a common external tariff and a common excise tariff to the customs area‚ with revenue being shared among member states according to a revenue-sharing formula as described in the agreement.In a statement released by the Presidency‚ Zuma said: “As leaders we agreed that SACU continues to play an important role in our economies and that it should be transformed into a vehicle for regional integration capable of promoting equitable development and the new SACU Vision.“As neighbouring countries our economies are intertwined therefore we need to effectively utilise this institution to grow our economies and also contribute in the development of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region.”Zuma said SACU should take advantage of the new BRICS Development Bank which was established to fund developmental projects in Africa and other parts of the world.“SACU member states are currently in discussions with regard to a roadmap to take SACU from the revenue sharing arrangement and a common external tariff to a developmental integration programme‚” the statement said...

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