The ultimate objective of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) trade protocol is to create an integrated regional market, said former Botswana president Ketumile Quett Masire in March 1996 when Sadc heads of state met in Maseru to approve and sign the protocol on trade.

I imagine it was a momentous occasion for the SA delegation, as then president Nelson Mandela’s signature on that protocol sought to change what one academic called an “alphabet soup” of economic organisations (Sadc, Comesa and so on) and many “tariff walls” and other trade restrictions between and among Southern African nations. ..

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