New EU members add 80 million new consumers

Alan Peat WITH THE expansion of the European Union (EU) by 10 new member countries on May 1, a whole new market place has opened up for SA traders, according to Duncan Bonnett of trade consultancy, Whitehouse & Associates. Although the newcomers - Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia - only add an estimated 5% to the EU gross domestic product (GDP), they add some 80-million new consumers, Bonnett told FTW. “And by SA standards these are reasonably wealthy consumers.” Looking at the trade patterns with these countries, Bonnett deduces that they form a very similar market to the sub-Saharan region - with an import focus on machinery, foods and processed goods. “It’s not like Western Europe,” he said. “From an SA perspective there should be a lot of concentration on these new members both from a trade and an investment aspect.”