The movement of goods across international frontiers in Southern Africa is characterized by high transaction costs, caused in part by different Customs transit procedures and documentation.

With technical assistance from the Southern Africa Global Com-petitiveness Hub (USAID Trade Hub), harmonized Customs Transit Procedures and a Single Administrative Document (SAD 500) were developed and adopted along selected transport corri-dors. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) are promoting the adoption of the SAD 500 in Member Countries.

The SAD 500 is a multi-purpose goods declaration form cover-ing imports, exports, cross-border and transit movements, and it incorporates all the information necessary for advanced cus-toms clearance and customs risk management purposes. It reduces paperwork and allows for quicker turnaround times with fewer errors, less confusion, lower costs, and improved trade efficiencies. The SAD 500 complies with international best practices and Customs standards, with similar documents having been introduced throughout the world. It was success-fully piloted in the Trans Kalahari Corridor (TKC) between South Africa, Botswana and Namibia and is now the only Cus-toms declaration document in all SACU Countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland). The same document is being used in the Dar es Salaam Corridor Coun-tries of Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia. Mozambique is also in the process of adopting the SAD 500.

This Customs transit document is currently being used under a manual environment between regional countries and the Cus-toms Administrations of the region have agreed to work to-wards transmitting it electronically across international frontiers in order to reduce transit times at border posts, and eliminate customs fraud associated with false declarations. The USAID Trade Hub hosted a workshop in October 2007 for purposes of developing modalities for Customs systems interface, connec-tivity, data interchange and electronic transmission of the SAD 500 across international frontiers. Participants were encour-aged to refer to the RADDEx computer connectivity program, designed and implemented by the East Africa Trade Hub, which connects different Customs computer systems in East Africa. It is expected that final decisions on the electronic transmission of the SAD 500 will be made in the second quar-ter of 2008.