Despite recent gloomy predictions, South Africa's foreign trade surplus rose to R7,6 billion at end-June (mid-1996 R2 billion) largely due to a 25% growth in the value of exports during the first 6 months of the year. Imports, including a R1-billion adjustment to oil imports to take account of a late-cleared consignment, rose by just under 15% in value on a year-on-year bases.
The 25% rise in export values for the first six months does not allow for complacency; but it nonetheless represents a real growth of nearly 6% after allowing for inflation and the weaker rand and is thus in line with the target export growth set in the government's GEAR policy.
A positive trend in the country's export performance is that the highest growth is shown in several value-added categories. Exports of machinery, for example, rose by 36% in value, of transport equipment by 86%, of miscellaneous manufactures by 55%, of chemicals by 31% and of footwear and accessories (admittedly a very modest contributor to export earnings) by 30%.
The major export sectors - diamonds and gold and base metals - performed creditably, although slightly below the average, both rising by 23% over the six months.
Imports have shown slower growth over the past 12 months, to a large extent because several major capital export-orientated projects (Alusaf and Columbus) boosted imports of machinery during their construction period: imports of machinery increased by only 10% in value during the first six months of the year. Imports across a wide range of other product categories, however, showed some firm increases.
In terms of regions, exports to Africa showed the highest growth and were 36% higher on a year-on-year basis; there was a healthy growth of 32% in South Africa's imports from Africa. Imports from Oceania (mainly Australia) are growing fast - up 35% - while the growth in trade with Asia is solid.
