Describes bilateral and multilateral trade agreements that this country is party to, including with the United States. Includes websites and other resources where U.S. companies can get more information on how to take advantage of these agreements.
Last Published: 11/1/2016

Trade Agreements                                                                          

Southern African Customs Union (SACU) - A customs union of five States: Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland. Under SACU, members enjoy a duty-free trade while on the other hand extending a common external tariff against imports from the rest of the world. As a member of SACU, Lesotho benefits from the free trade agreements SACU has with other countries or trade blocs. For more information about SACU, visit: www.sacu.int.
 
Southern African Development Community (SADC) – Lesotho is a member of SADC. SADC aspires to deepen regional integration and sustainable development through four successive phases: a SADC Free Trade Area (FTA), Customs Union, Common Market and the Monetary Union. The SADC FTA was fully implemented in 2012 within twelve SADC Member States, when the maximum tariff liberalization was completed. Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo and Seychelles remain outside the FTA. For more information about SADC, visit: www.sadc.int.
 
African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) - Lesotho benefits from AGOA, a unilateral and non-reciprocal program that provides African countries with duty-free access to the U.S. market for more than 6,400 products. For more information on AGOA, visit: www.agoa.gov.
 
Cotonou Agreement - Lesotho is part of the African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) – European Union (EU) Partnership Agreement, which grants non-reciprocal preferential access to the EU market for some ACP products. The country is classified as a least developed country under the Cotonou Agreement and its status is enhanced by the EU’s Everything But Arms (EBA) initiative. Under this initiative Lesotho enjoys quota- and duty-free access to the EU market for everything except arms. In addition, Lesotho has recently initialed an Interim Economic Partnership Agreement which will give it significantly improved access to the European Union. For more information on the Cotonou Agreement, please visit: http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/where/acp/overview/cotonou-agreement.
 
For more information on trade agreements, contact:
The Ministry of Trade and Industry, Cooperatives and marketing
P. O. Box 747, Maseru
Lesotho
Tel: (266) 22324939, Fax: (266) 22310644
Website: http://www.trade.gov.ls
 

Prepared by our U.S. Embassies abroad. With its network of 108 offices across the United States and in more than 75 countries, the U.S. Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce utilizes its global presence and international marketing expertise to help U.S. companies sell their products and services worldwide. Locate the U.S. Commercial Service trade specialist in the U.S. nearest you by visiting http://export.gov/usoffices.