Picture: Reuters Picture: Reuters
Johannesburg - South Africa sees opportunities to sell
more of its agricultural produce to the UK under a post-Brexit trade agreement,
Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said.
“The UK doesn’t have the sensitivities of some of the
countries from southern Europe that see us as competitors,” Davies said,
referring to wine and fruit.
“In the longer and medium term it may well be that we can
improve our access into the UK market for those products.”
Davies, who spoke in an interview on Tuesday, is in the UK
for talks to ensure that trade isn’t interrupted when the country leaves the
European Union. The Economic Partnership Agreement, signed last year between
the EU and the five-nation Southern African Customs Union, will form a template
for new UK-South Africa trading rules, Davies said.
Exports of South African citrus to the EU have been
periodically blocked in recent years due to objections from farm groups in
Spain, which competes with South Africa as a producer of the fruits, who said
they were concerned about the possibility of black-spot disease from South
Africa infecting their trees.
Read also: Davies seeks to boost exports
South Africa and Spain are major suppliers of oranges and
other citrus fruit globally and the African country is the world’s
seventh-biggest wine producer.
The bulk of the EPA will remain in place but the
countries will have to renegotiate quotas for some products before the Brexit
process is complete, Davies said. “There’s nothing that’s going to require a
huge amount of negotiating effort on both sides.”
The Southern African Customs Union consists of South
Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland.