 As Tralak, we're collaborating with UNU wider on a study on the interaction between market integration and regional industrial development, an area that's very high on the priority of most regional economic groupings, and we're particularly in this phase of our collaboration focusing on the southern African development community regional industrial development process. I feel it's an important area to really be looking at presently because of the priority that has been given in the regional economic integration agenda, not only in SADIC but in other regional economic communities as well. I think also at the continental level there is this focus on industrial development and a three pronged approach to industrial development where there's market integration which is linked to industrial development, but also there's infrastructure which comes into the picture to play a supporting role in the process. And so especially in SADIC there's been a shift from the initial thinking of a linear approach to integration to now focus on how to develop regional value chains so that at least countries can move from being exporters of primary products to higher value products. So it's definitely an area that we need to look at and especially when you look at the interaction between the three, certainly what we're seeing is that market integration plays a critical role in supporting industrial development. And the tool is already there, for example, the SADIC protocol on trade which has all the provisions for market integration, but it's actually ineffectively implementing these provisions that we can actually realize industrial development on the regional level. Although those positives are there, there are also some tensions that we actually note between market integration and industrial development, especially where countries have a national policy space to actually try and promote the industrial development objectives. You actually see that sometimes this can run counter to the commitments that they made in the market integration agenda. So we feel this is really important for us to really explore these different links that are within this sort of developmental integration agenda framework. What we've done initially is just a broad study, reviewing the SADIC trade protocol and reviewing implementation of the market integration agenda within this protocol. So we've looked at the six sections of the SADIC trade protocol. And overall, at the outset, I think we're seeing about four initial findings. There are definitely some provisions in there that are clear in terms of the obligations that member states have in terms of market integration. But you see that because as they actually pursue their national industrial development objectives, they're actually infringing on some of these commitments. So that's the first main finding that we have. Secondly, we're also looking at the actual instruments within the regional integration framework itself. So the protocol provides, for example, on rules of origin. It's a highly contentious issue. The rules of origin in SADIC were designed to actually promote regional value chains, but they're actually having the opposite effect, where it's really difficult because they're product-specific. And the requirements for the different descriptions are actually quite complex. So you actually find industries failing to develop and link into regional value chains because of the complexity of the rules of origin. So even though there's countries, in the first instance, where countries are infringing on their commitments, there's also instruments within the protocol itself, which actually run counter to regional industrial development. So thirdly, there's governance-related aspects within the regional integration framework, especially on trade-related issues. So areas like investment services, for example, competition policy. So just to take, for example, the area of investment, we actually see that the governance framework is such that it puts governments in a difficult position to actually be able to perfectly balance the rights of private investors on the one hand and the rights of the citizens on the other hand. For example, one of the issues that is really high on the agenda in industrial development in SADIC is the beneficiation of region, of natural resources, minerals, for example. So we know that this is an area that requires a lot of investment, heavy investment, and it will mostly entail FDI flowing into countries. But we also know that with the beneficiation process, there are other concerns that come up like health concerns or environmental concerns coming from emissions or disposal based and things like that. So the SADIC FIP actually gives governments the right to regulate in the public interest against some of these concerns. But you actually see that even though that provision is there, governments are actually limited in terms of the dispute settlement mechanism that they can actually access. They're actually limited to their national courts. What has happened in SADIC is that the SADIC Tribunal, the jurisdiction of the SADIC Tribunal has been limited to interstate disputes. So even if a government wanted to bring a case, for example, against a private investor, they can't bring it to the SADIC Tribunal because the jurisdiction is limited. So they're only limited to their national courts. Investors can go to the Ixid and Ancetra Fora for enforcement of their rights. The SADIC FIP actually provides for that and it's an important element in the protection of their rights. But then in the case of individual citizens, they're also limited to their national courts because whereas before they could actually bring cases to the SADIC Tribunal, now because the jurisdiction is limited, they actually can't come to the regional court. So it's only the national court processes that they have at their disposal. So this is really an area that we feel that would have to also be looked at in more detail. The last and perhaps most important point is what I've just alluded to as well in the investment kind of framework. It's on dispute settlement within SADIC and we feel that the limit of the jurisdiction to interstate disputes actually puts SADIC in a difficult position to actually protect the rights of private parties. And it's mostly the traders and the producers who are involved in the actual trade and these people should actually have the ability to enforce their rights even in these regional institutions. It's happening in other regions in commessa. There's a good example that has just come up in the EAC as well. There's also a lot of enforcement in the East African Court of Justice by private parties, giving them a direct route to actually be able to sort out certain impediments that they're facing. So if you're in SADIC, this dispute settlement mechanism would also have to be really looked at and it's quite critical for the whole process actually. The organic honey situation, it's imports of organic honey from Zambia into South Africa, which are facing a restriction in South Africa whereby there's a requirement to irradiate the honey before it can actually be imported into South Africa. The only complication being that once you irradiate honey, it actually loses its organic status. And so organic honey is being looked at as a potential area where Zambia is competitive in terms of industrial development. So there are a lot of farmers that can actually benefit from this. But it's an issue that was registered on the tripartite online mechanism back in 2011. And even though there's still consultations, and last we checked a few weeks ago, there's still consultations. Even South Africa is currently still looking at the issue. But then it hasn't been resolved since 2011 in four years. I think it's a long time for a trader that's trying to access a foreign market. So it's in this kind of area where you see that the dispute settlement mechanism doesn't really help these private traders because now that the dispute resolution is limited to interstate parties, they have to rely on Zambia, perhaps bringing a case against South Africa in the Sadiq tribunal. But we've seen that this is quite unlikely because I think African governments as a whole are not really ready to litigate against each other. This is a trend that we've noticed, I think, over the years. Would we see Zambia taking South Africa to the WTO? It's also unlikely, an unlikely scenario. Maybe the costs involved and everything. But there's actually a panel procedure that is provided for an annex six of the Sadiq protocol and trade, which we're actually encouraging that should actually be explored and should actually be utilized. It hasn't been utilized as yet by Sadiq member states. But it's an area where experts, for example, in this issue, it's a sanitary and phytosanitary issue. It's a highly technical issue. But there are experts in the region who can actually sit on a panel and actually look at this issue and try and resolve it so that at least potentially, if such a requirement isn't there, also on the basis of the South African Department of Agriculture's study, which actually found that the disease that actually brought about this measure, AFB, it's called African Far-Brewed Disease, which was present in Zambia before. But the South African Department of Agriculture has found that it's not present anymore. But even though they found that the measure is still there, so this panel procedure can actually come in to try and resolve such an issue and resolve it timeously, because this is what really traders would actually want.