Export trade with Africa booms

South Africa's exports to Africa now total about US $3.3 billion a year, indicating an expansion of 335 percent since 1992 when trade sanctions against South Africa were lifted, a report released by a research firm this week said. The report, compiled by Whitehouse and Associates for South Africa's export promotion conference to be held in October, showed that most of South Africa's export trade was in manufactured goods. The figures, however, excluded exports to South Africa's partners in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) that comprise Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland. However, the figures also showed a sharp slowdown in the growth of this trade in the last three years. In 1995, for example, the export trade had grown by 61 percent from 1992, while in 1996 the figure stood at only 27 percent increase. In 1997 export trade grew by only 11 percent and last year a mere 3 percent growth was recorded. This decline, according to the report, was partly because of the worldwide recession and also because of the unresolved trade dispute with South Africa's main neighbouring market of Zimbabwe. The trade dispute between the two countries revolves around the trade deficit which favours South Africa whereby Zimbabwe imports goods worth about US $325 million per annum from South Africa, while South Africa imports from Zimbabwe goods worth only about US $75 million. Zimbabwe's trade and industry officials have been negotiating amendments to the terms of this 1964 bilateral trade agreement with their South African counterparts since 1995. This agreement expired in 1992 and has not been renewed, but trade and industry sources indicated that the status quo has remained, leading to tension between the two neighbours. At the same time, added the report, last year saw a fall of 15 percent in South Africa's imports from the rest of Africa, which is bound to create political tensions within the region.