Surplus runs into billions every month, writes Leonard Neill
SOUTH AFRICA'S exporters are doing extremely well in the global market but the comments of some local analysts are not doing the country any favours, says economist Mike Schussler.
South Africa, he says, ranks second internationally only to China in export performance currently, with the country's figures in this respect having grown 18% on a trade-weighted rand basis for a three-month average in collective figures for the past 20 months.
"It is causing South Africa to have surplus running into billions every month, but reading the comments of some analysts the message getting out to the world is that this is merely a fluke or because imports have declined. Not only are those comments nonsense, they are also 100% factually wrong."
Schussler accepts that this year has seen a slowdown in export growth to around 14%, but this still keeps the country among the top two in the world in 2001. Imports, he says, have grown 7% in trade-weighted rand terms.
"Export growth in real terms has not been negative at all for the past 25 months. This country's trade statistics get blamed for many things, but checking recent figures leaves one with an impression that nothing short of a miracle has happened. Countries like Taiwan, Singapore and others in the east show exports in negative territory in dollar terms whereas South African exports are growing in double digits in dollar terms."
Referring to the weak state of the rand against the dollar, he says this has helped tremendously in the export field and the country is likely to have a surplus on the current account for the first time since 1994, when the free trade era arrived for South Africa.
Manufacturing items accounted for 30% of exports last year, while overall exports grew from around 17% to an expected 28% of gross domestic product, an increase of about 65% in 15 years.
