SA is EU’s biggest trading partner in SSA

South Africa and the European Union (EU) are true trade partners, with the greatest parity between exports and imports of all SA’s trading partners. South Africa is the EU’s biggest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa, with €46 billion (R880bn) of total trade in goods in 2025, according to European Commission figures. EU Ambassador to SA, Sandra Kramer, describes Europe as SA’s largest trading and investment partner. “About 23% of trade in goods is between South Africa and the EU, while around 43% of foreign direct investment comes from Europe,” Kramer said during a panel discussion at the sixth SA Investment Conference. She added that approximately 1 700 European companies operated in South Africa, supporting over 500 000 direct jobs and an estimated 1.6 million indirect jobs. EU-SA trade and investment have increased steadily since the EU-SADC Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) was signed in 2016. Since then, EU-South Africa trade has increased by 31% (EU imports have risen by 53% and EU exports have gone up by 16%). Under the EU-SADC EPA, the EU has fully or partially removed customs duties on 98% of imports from South Africa. On 20 November 2025, the EU and SA signed the first Clean Trade and Investment Partnership (CTIP). Building on the existing EU-SADC EPA, the deal will “be mutually beneficial”, according to the EU Commission. “For the EU, it will help diversify strategic clean supply chains, create new investment opportunities for EU companies and strengthen access to essential raw materials. For South Africa, it will support industrialisation and local beneficiation, as well as help to decarbonise its economy and to ensure a just energy transition,” it states. Europe is also the leading source of foreign direct investment, reaching €40.4bn (R776bn) in 2024, or 25% of EU investment in sub-Saharan Africa. Wider political and economic cooperation with the EU is structured in accordance with the Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement (TDCA), whereas trade relations are governed by the EU-SADC EPA. The SA Paris embassy says the South Africa-EU Strategic Partnership is the only one of its kind that the EU has with an African country, and one of only 10 globally. “The strategic partnership expanded the scope of the interaction beyond trade issues to incorporate a much wider scope of cooperation, with structured bilateral mechanisms and high-level meetings to support South Africa’s national, regional, continental and global priorities and programmes,” according to the embassy. The South Africa-European Union (SA-EU) Joint Cooperation Council (JCC), co-chaired by the DG of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation and its EU counterpart, covers over 20 sectoral policy dialogues, including diverse issues such as development cooperation, science and technology, space, migration, health, trade, education and skills development, peace and security and human rights. ER