Statistics released on Friday show that South Africa’s 2002 exports increased most to Oceania, which includes Australia and New Zealand. Import growth in 2002 increased most from Africa, in part because South Africa switched oil imports from the Middle East to African countries.
Overall export growth was 24,2% to R312,8911-billion, while imports increased by 26,0% to R273,5055-billion. This gave a surplus for the year of R39,386-billion, which was larger than the 2001 surplus, even though export growth was below import growth.
Exports to Oceania showed the highest growth at 32,2% to R4,3413-billion, while the slowest growth was in the unclassified section, which includes precious metals and arms. This category only grew by 19,3% to R76,0495-billion.
Import growth was highest from Africa at 48% to R9,7117-billion in line with the South African government’s commitment to promote intra-African trade.
The impact of the South Africa/European Union Free Trade Act in 2002 was in favour of Europe, despite the weak rand. It probably reflects the fact that the
South African economy grew faster at some 3% in 2002 than the Europe, which
struggled to get to 1% growth.
The popular perception is that the South African rand was the worst performing currency against the US dollar in 2001 and the best performing currency in 2002.
This is because people focus on the movement of the rand, rather than the annual average.
The rand went from R7,56 per dollar at the end of 2000 to R12 per dollar at the end of 2001 and then back to R8,59 at the end of 2002. The reality is that the annual average of R10,51 per dollar in 2002 was 22% weaker than the annual average of 8.61 in 2001.
Import growth from Europe rose by 30,6% to R123,2987-billion, while export growth to Europe increased by only 25,6% to R98,0493-billion. Most of the unclassified exports do go to Europe from where they are then re- exported to the rest of the world.
The trade deficit with Europe surged by 54,7% to R25,2494-billion. This was in part compensated for by the 19,1% rise in the unclassified trade surplus.
South Africa’s trade surplus with the rest of Africa, excluding its Southern African Customs Union partners of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland, soared by 21,9% to R34,2585-billion. This is because exports still managed a 26,8% increase to R43,97-billion despite the problems in Zimbabwe, which used to be South Africa’s largest African market. This is a position now held by Mozambique. – I-Net Bridge