[ { "area": "afcfta", "id": "AFC-B-01", "title": "Of 48 State Parties with adopted tariff schedules, 22 had not gazetted them by July 2026, and 12 had told the Secretariat they were trading", "types": "regulatory", "jurisdictions": "", "records": "AFR-T-0002", "effect": "not_established", "summary": "A tariff schedule adopted by the Council of Ministers has to be gazetted at home before a country can trade under it. The Secretariat's July 2026 tracker counts 48 adopted, 26 gazetted and 12 State Parties that have notified it they are trading. The 22 not yet gazetted include Angola and Zimbabwe in SADC and Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal in ECOWAS. The AU Assembly in February 2026 urged them to gazette and start trading by the end of 2026. Trade values under the Agreement were not found in the sources read." }, { "area": "afcfta", "id": "AFC-B-02", "title": "South Africa trades under the AfCFTA on 90% of its tariff book; the schedule for the other 10% was due in February 2026 and was not found", "types": "regulatory", "jurisdictions": "ZAF", "records": "ZAF-T-0001", "effect": "not_established", "summary": "South Africa trades under the Southern African Customs Union's common offer, gazetted on 26 January 2024 with effect from 31 January, which covers Category A, 90% of the tariff book. The minister said in June 2025 that the remaining 10% (7% sensitive products and 3% excluded) would be concluded by October 2025 for adoption in February 2026. An adopted schedule for those categories was not found in the sources read. Trade with SADC partners runs under the SADC Trade Protocol either way." }, { "area": "afcfta", "id": "AFC-B-03", "title": "The Protocol on Investment was adopted in February 2023; no source read shows it in force, and its dispute annex was still being negotiated in July 2026", "types": "regulatory", "jurisdictions": "", "records": "AFR-T-0005", "effect": "not_established", "summary": "The Protocol enters into force after twenty-two ratifications, and would then require bilateral investment treaties between State Parties to end within five years. No source read gives the number of ratifications. Its annex on investment disputes was under negotiation in July 2025, with five member states asking for investor-state arbitration, and was still outstanding in July 2026 although the Assembly had set February 2026 for it. South Africa's trade minister said South Africa would ratify once the annexes are adopted, expected by 2027. Bilateral investment treaties between State Parties (members for which the Protocol is in force) would end within five years of entry into force, and State Parties are not to conclude new ones among themselves; the regional communities' investment agreements are to be aligned with \"best endeavours\" within five to ten years." }, { "area": "payments", "id": "PAY-B-01", "title": "South Africa's exchange-control rules date from 1961; their replacement was published in draft in April 2026, and no final version was found", "types": "regulatory", "jurisdictions": "ZAF", "records": "ZAF-R-0007", "effect": "not_established", "summary": "National Treasury published draft Capital Flow Management Regulations in April 2026 to replace the regulations of 1961. Under the October 2026 version of the Reserve Bank's exchange-control manual (the latest read), residents may not transfer capital outside the Common Monetary Area except as its listed subsections allow (individuals up to R10 million a year; banks may approve a company's new foreign direct investment up to R5 billion a year, with no separate limit for Africa in the passage read), while rand investments and transfers within the Common Monetary Area need no approval. Treasury describes its draft as a \"positive bias\" approach with fewer transactions needing prior approval. The draft keeps a permission rule for the transactions it lists, and treats the currencies of Lesotho, Namibia and Eswatini as not foreign. The comment period closed on 30 June 2026; final regulations were not found in the sources read. What the manual requires of companies above R5 billion was not read." }, { "area": "payments", "id": "PAY-B-02", "title": "The region's settlement system worked in one currency, the rand, from 2013 until July 2026", "types": "financial", "jurisdictions": "sadc", "records": "SADC-P-0001", "effect": "not_established", "summary": "SADC-RTGS settled only in rand from its start in 2013, by the Reserve Bank's account. In July 2026 the Reserve Bank and Banco Nacional de Angola added the kwanza, and the Reserve Bank says direct settlement in a participant's own currency avoids foreign-exchange conversions and lowers costs. It intends to add others, such as the pula, without a date. No source gives the cost of the conversions or how much now settles in kwanza." }, { "area": "payments", "id": "PAY-B-03", "title": "South African banks are reachable on the continental system PAPSS only for inbound payments", "types": "institutional", "jurisdictions": "ZAF", "records": "AFR-P-0001", "effect": "not_established", "summary": "PAPSS's June 2026 coverage document lists live participants in 14 countries by our count, including Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe in SADC, but lists South Africa only on its inbound-only Extended Network, with 22 banks reachable and a note that additional integration may be required. What inbound-only access allows in practice is not explained in the document." }, { "area": "power-trade", "id": "PT-B-01", "title": "Central-corridor transmission limits leave matched energy untraded", "types": "physical", "jurisdictions": "ZWE; ZMB", "records": "SAPP-K-0001", "effect": "not_established", "summary": "SAPP's market reports for the months read record part of the matched energy going untraded because of transmission constraints (between about a quarter and nearly three-quarters, depending on the month and the measure), and its April to June 2026 reports place the bottleneck at the Zimbabwe–Zambia interconnectors. Headline shares and table measures differ between reports and are not reconciled." }, { "area": "power-trade", "id": "PT-B-02", "title": "Namibia freezes new generation licences for export", "types": "regulatory; physical", "jurisdictions": "NAM; ZAF", "records": "NAM-R-0002", "effect": "not_established", "summary": "Press reports of an Electricity Control Board statement say the freeze runs from September 2025 to January 2029, citing limited interconnector capacity in South Africa. Producers taking part in South African network upgrades are exempt once the South African utility confirms it, and battery plants exporting at night are exempt outright." }, { "area": "power-trade", "id": "PT-B-03", "title": "Outages on transit routes affect trade between other countries", "types": "physical", "jurisdictions": "NAM; ZAF; ZMB", "records": "SAPP-K-0002; SAPP-K-0003", "effect": "not_established", "summary": "SAPP reports that NamPower network outages on 11 and 13 November 2025 affected transmission from NTCSA to ZESCO. SAPP's quarterly report lists Caprivi Link converter work on the same dates. That the two are the same event is inferred from the dates; no SAPP document links them." }, { "area": "power-trade", "id": "PT-B-04", "title": "Consultation is the last verified step for operating rules in both new markets", "types": "regulatory", "jurisdictions": "ZAF; ZMB", "records": "ZAF-R-0001; ZMB-R-0001", "effect": "not_established", "summary": "In South Africa and Zambia the last verified step for the new markets' operational instruments is a consultation; no later adoption was found in the sources read. This is a shared stage, not a shared cause." }, { "area": "power-trade", "id": "PT-B-05", "title": "Mozambique's network access: no transit tariff found, and EDM runs the system in the interim", "types": "regulatory; institutional", "jurisdictions": "MOZ", "records": "MOZ-R-0001; MOZ-R-0002", "effect": "not_established", "summary": "Mozambique's 2022 Electricity Law and its July 2026 regulation give third parties non-discriminatory access to the transmission network, where capacity allows and service quality is not affected, on payment of a transit tariff that the regulator ARENE is to set. No such tariff was found. The law gives system and market operation to an autonomous body. Until that body's statute is approved, the regulation assigns those functions to EDM, the state utility that also owns the network." }, { "area": "corridors", "id": "FC-B-01", "title": "Truck crossings at Beitbridge took about two days on average in one week of July 2026", "types": "physical; institutional", "jurisdictions": "ZAF; ZWE", "records": "ZAF-K-0001", "effect": "not_established", "summary": "A trade-press report of a weekly corridor report gives an average crossing time of 46 hours for 20 to 26 July 2026, with worst-case waits approaching four days. South Africa's Border Management Authority placed the cause on the Zimbabwean side. A SADC news item gave three to six hours for clearance in February 2025; that is a different measure and the two are not reconciled." }, { "area": "corridors", "id": "FC-B-02", "title": "Private trains are contracted but not yet running, and the Act's rail access chapter is listed as not yet commenced in the version read, though the regulator itself is in force", "types": "regulatory; institutional", "jurisdictions": "ZAF", "records": "ZAF-R-0004; ZAF-R-0005", "effect": "not_established", "summary": "Eleven private operators concluded access agreements in May 2026. Operation Vulindlela targets their first operations for early 2027, and Transnet's infrastructure manager told them they would enter \"a network that had been neglected\". The Act's rail access chapter, which would let either side of a failed access negotiation refer it to the regulator, is listed as not yet commenced in the Law Library's commencement history (checked 26 October 2026), although the regulator was established on 1 April 2025 and a further part of its chapter commenced on 1 April 2026. That text predates the Amendment Act reported signed in March 2026, which was not read, so a later commencement cannot be ruled out." } ]