Rice, herbs and spices, and optic fibre imports from China could all be strained by growing energy-related production challenges experienced out east.
This comes as South Africa’s biggest trading partner curtails coal-fired power plant emissions ahead of next year’s Winter Olympics in February.
Currently, scaled down coal imports by China, as it readies to comply with reduced pollution targets in time for February’s sports spectacle, have already led to a shortage of rice on local shelves, Bloomberg reports.
Not only that, but the ongoing scarcity of container availability is adding further pressure to east-west import dynamics, with local food prices of Chinese consumer commodities rising 33% year-on-year.
There are, however, fears that a looming energy crisis in China, as it forces more and more production plants to close down in a bid to curb emissions, could trigger an import crisis in countries like South Africa.
Word on the ground is that traders are already jockeying for position, pre-booking boxes well in advance to ensure that tech imports such as optic fibre and mobile devices are secure.
This, however, could come at the cost of food imports from Asia.
According to Agri Enterprises, although South Africa manages to produce a fair amount of its own herbs and spices, 51% is imported from India and 14% from China.
Agrimark Consulting added that the unreliability of South Africa’s ports, especially in relation to nagging congestion and the resulting choice of lines to pass on berthing slots for the sake of schedule reliability elsewhere, could put further pressure on Asian imports over the next few months.
