Inclusion on BLNS trade stats - why now?

Approval by the Minister of Finance of the inclusion of data relating to trade with Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland (BLNS countries) in South Africa’s trade statistics has been greeted with scepticism and surprise. “Why now?” was the question asked by SA Chamber of Commerce and Industries economist Richard Downing. “They’ve know about the BLNS countries since the union was formed in 1910. Why are they at this stage changing the figures? The problem remains that we still have a trade deficit and the rand is weakening." Another problem, he says, is the difficulty in getting accurate figures, which he believes is possibly a reason why in the past the BLNS figures were not included. “These economies are so integrated that picking up imports and exports is very difficult. Generally it’s an estimate.” Sars however believes that it modernisation programme has done much to improve accuracy. “Our systems have moved to new technologically enhanced platforms that enable better electronic capturing of trade data that was previously done manually. The modernised system greatly improves the accuracy and allows the reporting and analysis of trade data to be done in real-time,” a spokesman said. According to Sars, BLNS merchandise trade has a material impact on South Africa’s trade balance. South Africa exported R103.8bn to and imported R21.5bn from BLNS countries. In the last full year (2012) this resulted in a positive trade balance of R82.3bn for trade with BLNS countries. South Africa’s total trade deficit for 2012 was R116.9bn. Had the BLNS trade data been included, the deficit would have shrunk to R34.6bn, according to Sars.