Trans-Kalahari Corridor agreement signed

Transport ministers from Botswana, Namibia and South Africa on Tuesday signed the "Trans-Kalahari Corridor (TKC) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)" to improve the flow of commercial traffic between the three countries. The agreement, signed in the Namibian port town of Walvis Bay, was developed with the support of the US Agency for International Development's (USAID) Regional Center for Southern Africa (RCSA). It aims to encourage South African and Botswana exports to move through Walvis Bay. "Our shared vision, which is so eloquently and unequivocally articulated in the Trans-Kalahari MOU, is to facilitate the movement of goods and persons along the corridor by simplifying and harmonising the requirements and controls that govern the movement of goods and persons, with a view to reducing transportation costs and transit times," said Botswana's minister of works and transport, Tebelelo Seretse. She added: "There is no shadow of doubt that road transport plays an important role in our region, which is by and large land-locked. As a matter of fact, more than 85 percent of goods and people are transported by road." The TKC and Walvis Bay would provide an alternative to South African ports for some Southern African shippers, shortening shipping times to markets in the United States and Europe by 5 to 10 days, a recent study by the RCSA revealed. That would represent significant savings for sub-regional exporters of textiles and garments to the United States, under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act. The distance between Gauteng, the industrial heartland of South Africa, and Walvis Bay along the TKC via the southern border post at Ariamsvle, is 400 km shorter than the road and rail route that is currently most often used. TKC stakeholders have agreed on a single customs administrative document, which is already in use on a pilot basis. The new simplified approach streamlines transit transactions, replacing existing customs procedures that can involve up to 10 documents for each country transited.