China And The Southern African Customs Union To Establish A Free Trade Area Analysis

At present, against the backdrop of a difficult global multilateral free trade negotiation process, free trade area is widely accepted by lots of countries and regions for its strong feasibility and profitability as a form of international economic integration. Though a late starter in this area, China has made FTA the national strategy in its reform and opening-up policy. It is important for China to have diversified FTA partner objectives in which the promotion of Sino-SACU FTA should be a priority.First, the thesis laid out the basis for presenting and analyzing the theories with regard to FTA, including the customs union theory, free trade theory, product life cycle theory, etc.Second, the thesis briefly discusses the economic status of SACU and China, as well as their ties economically and politically, all of which contribute to the preconditions for a possible Sino-SACU FTA.Based on the analysis of the previous two chapters, the thesis selects several factors which have major impact on a successful FTA, and put them into the analysis of the feasibility of Sino-SACU FTA, the conclusion is that the benefit of building such a FTA outweighs the cost, which could be avoided by coordination.Then, the thesis discusses the development of Sino-SACU FTA negotiation, and made some analysis into the reason for a slow negotiating process.The thesis concludes with the strategy and policy options for the promotion of Sino-SACU FTA on the part of China, based on the use of SWOT matrix analysis.