ABSTRACT
The trading characteristics of any region can be examined from a variety of scales, ranging from the global and international to the regional and national. Trade is of central significance to the economies of the countries of southern and eastern Africa. Both intra-regional and international patterns of trade, and the conditions under which such trade occurs, have experienced some important shifts over the past 20 years as structural adjustment within the region, and the wider implications of economic globalisation more generally, have made their impacts. Above all, trade has been liberalised, reducing or removing the protection from global competition that many governments previously afforded specific sectors of their economies. Global agreements are also gradually removing the special status, often derived from colonial legacies, that particular countries enjoyed with respect to access to markets in Europe or particular European countries. This chapter is based on an empirical examination of the region’s trading characteristics. It will first explore the position and place of eastern and southern African trade in the world economy. How peripheral is this region of Africa? Second, the trading relationship between eastern and southern Africa and the European Union (EU), which is the region’s most important trading partner, is examined in order to explore further the international characteristics of the region’s trade. This is followed by an analysis of regional trading transactions and an evaluation of various schemes designed to promote regional integration via trade. Through an examination of international and regional trade, this chapter will highlight not only those phenomena common (if not necessarily unique) to the region of eastern and southern Africa, but also factors that can be used to subdivide the region.
