Post-sanctions trade booms

30 Jun 2000 - by Staff reporter

Netherlands a star performer,
writes Alan Peat

TRADE WITH SA's top trading partners has grown apace since the end of sanctions and the country's first democratic elections.
The average growth among the Top 15 trading partners was almost 160% in the 1992-1998 period. This compares to a figure of 34% compound growth that would have been achieved had SA trade merely grown at the +5% a year, the global average trade growth in the past decade.
While there have been a few changes in the Top 15 league table for the period, this has been in the lower echelons. The four leaders - USA, Germany, UK and Japan - with whom we conduct more than half of our total league trade, have remained constant.
An interesting performer, however, took 5th spot in the 1998 league from 8th in '92- with the Netherlands showing well above average growth in both import and export trade with SA.
While SA imports from there have been widespread in product type, the 222% increase in our exports to that country has mostly come from a select group of six product categories - vegetable products; prepared foodstuffs and beverages; mineral products; chemicals and allied products; base metals and articles thereof; and vehicles and transport equipment. These compose more than 92% of SA's total exports to the Netherlands.
Another interesting climb was that of Zimbabwe - which moved up from 11th to 10th place in 1998 - purely on the strength of a growth in exports from SA.
But Duncan Bonnett of Whitehouse & Associates hints at possible change on the horizon. Mozambique - already SA's second largest trading partner in Africa - has been very much on the up-and-up since 1998, while Zimbabwe is beginning to slip downwards.
A large proportion of Zimbabwe's imports from SA - apart from vegetable and mineral products - are manufactured goods.
The category of machinery, mechanical appliances, electrical equipment, television and audio equipment is the big player - but followed by vehicles and transport equipment; chemical and allied products; plastics, rubber and articles thereof; and base metals and articles thereof.
In its currently troubled economic state, Bonnett suggests that Zimbabwe is likely to show a large drop-off in this area of its trade off-take.
Given a continuation of the trends in both countries, he told FTW, you might find Zimbabwe fading out of league status, while Mozambique might emerge as a new member of the SA Top 15.
Also a teaser is Australia, which shows the largest percentage growth figures in the table, and climbed from 18th to 12th spot in the six year period.
Exports to Australia grew by 410% - mostly on the back of increases in trade in the categories: chemical and allied products; base metals and articles thereof; machinery, mechanical appliances, electrical equipment, television and audio; and vehicles and transport equipment.
Also, SA imports from Australia have boomed by 465% - with the first three product categories named in exports also being the big performers in this boom.
Our trade with Mainland China (the Peoples Republic) showed the league's largest percentage growth in imports (at +564%) - a figure which is not yet completely explained.
In the classification table, the major import player was the machinery, mechanical appliances etc category - which, with its total for 1998 of R1.3-billion, equalled the figures for chemicals; textiles and miscellaneous manufactured articles combined.
While Hong Kong dropped out of its Top 15 spot in 1998, it is still registered in these figures as an independent state. However, part of the growth in SA imports from the PRC might be attributed to goods being reclassified to the Mainland China table, where previously they had been attributed to, and routed through, Hong Kong.
Bonnett also suggests that the 1999 figures, when completed, should have HK as part of the PRC figures. We can thus expect that - when they are amalgamated - the PRC will move up a couple of notches. He told FTW.
Other big performers in the import league were the two bottom-placed countries - Korea and Spain - which showed +284% and +528% growth respectively.
The main products in the 1998 import figures from both countries were the ubiquitous machinery, mechanical appliances etc category - but the Asian speciality of textiles is also a big category in imports from Korea, and the rather interesting original equipment components (car parts) category features in the import figures from Spain.
The only minus in the whole table is that against the name of Switzerland - where SA exports have fallen off by 71% from 92 to 98. This could probably be described as displaying SA's enormous strength in the global gold market - with the bulk of this downward dive attributed to SA switching a lot of gold sales from Zurich to London.
The only two newcomers in the Top 15 are the PRC and Australia - which moved into the league in 1998, at the expense of former front runners Hong Kong and Israel.