The EU and South Africa signed the first-ever Clean Trade and Investment Partnership (CTIP), building on the EU-South Africa Strategic Partnership and the Economic Partnership Agreement.

The CTIP will support bilateral trade and investments in clean supply chains, benefitting the EU and South Africa in their decarbonisation objectives and the economies on both sides. It will diversify strategic clean supply chains, create new trade and investment opportunities, and strengthen EU access to raw materials. It will also support the creation of local added value in South Africa, its industrialisation objectives, and its Just Energy Transition. 

The CTIP will focus on strategic sectors such as: 

• Renewable energy, low carbon and net-zero technologies;
• Electricity transmission and electricity grid;
• Clean fuels, including sustainable transport fuels;
• Raw materials value chains, and;
• Climate mitigation and adaptation technologies. 

The CTIP will promote new opportunities in clean supply chains by mobilising public and private financing, addressing trade and investment barriers, ensuring transparent access to public procurement, and facilitating investments. It will also facilitate the implementation of European Investment Bank (EIB) financing under the Just Energy Transition Partnership. Business will be directly involved in CTIP implementation through a Business-to-Government Forum.

Background 

The CTIP was announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in 2024, with an aim to support the EU’s decarbonisation and competitiveness objectives, as an external instrument of the Clean Industrial Deal.

This new way of engagement will enable the EU and its partners to profit from flexible and dynamic deals, providing legal certainty without creating excessively heavy structures. It creates flexible and targeted deals, tailored to concrete business interests, and it is part of new forms of engagement, aligning engagement on trade, investment, climate, energy and development cooperation through the implementation of the Global Gateway Investment Package.

South Africa is the EU’s first CTIP partner and the largest investment partner in Sub-Saharan Africa. Trade flows stood at €45 billion in 2024, and the EU is the number one investor in the country, representing over 40% of FDI.

The CTIP complements the Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and the Southern Africa Development Community, which provides a solid legal framework on trade in goods for the CTIP by liberalising trade in environmental goods.

Source: EU Commission