Cape Town – King Mswati III has called on Southern African Customs Union member states to adopt a unified and deliberate approach to regional integration, warning that the bloc faces mounting vulnerabilities from global economic turbulence.
Speaking at the 9th SACU Summit of Heads of State or Government, the Monarch said deeper regional integration had moved beyond aspiration and was now a strategic economic necessity.
The King noted that since Eswatini hosted the last summit in June 2023, the global economic landscape had deteriorated sharply, pointing to heightened geopolitical competition, rising protectionism, international supply chain disruptions and the increasing use of unilateral trade measures that leave SACU nations exposed to escalating energy, transport and production costs.
“These developments remind us that regional integration is no longer simply an aspiration. It is an economic necessity and a strategic instrument for protecting our countries from external shocks,” the King said.
“Our collective response must be deliberate, practical and focused on building productive capacity within our own region,” he added.
His Majesty cautioned against fragmented or separate negotiations by individual member states with international trading partners, warning that such an approach risked compromising the integrity of the common external tariff and weakening the bloc’s collective bargaining power.
The King also called on SACU to urgently transition from its primary role as a customs revenue collection and distribution mechanism into a fully-fledged developmental economic community.
“Our citizens will ultimately measure the success of SACU not by the number of strategies we adopt, but by the industries established, investments mobilised, markets opened, borders modernised, and jobs created,” he said.
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