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Impact of SADC Free Trade Area on Southern Africa’s Intra-Trade Performance: Implications for the African Continental Free Trade Area

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  • Busani Moyo

Abstract

The main raison d’être of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Free Trade Area (FTA) implemented in 2012 was to inter alia boost intra-regional trade and promote regional trade integration. The low levels of growth and mixed trade performance of countries, eight years after, raises questions about the success of the FTA. The success of the recently launched African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) partly hinges on the performance of the regional FTAs like the SADC FTA. This is because it is unlikely that the African Union through the AfCFTA will achieve continentally what regional economic communities failed to achieve at the regional level. We use a gravity model as well as the difference in difference estimator to evaluate, ex-post, the impact of the SADC FTA on total and sectoral intra-exports. Using data from 2001 to 2019, results show that the full implementation of the SADC FTA did not significantly affect export performance with the export difference between countries that joined the FTA and those that did not being insignificant. These results do not change even when using sectoral exports. JEL Codes: F1, F13, F14, F15

Suggested Citation

  • Busani Moyo, 2024. "Impact of SADC Free Trade Area on Southern Africa’s Intra-Trade Performance: Implications for the African Continental Free Trade Area," Foreign Trade Review, , vol. 59(1), pages 146-180, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:fortra:v:59:y:2024:i:1:p:146-180
    DOI: 10.1177/00157325231184669
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    SADC FTA; intra-trade; gravity; DID; AfCFTA;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration

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