A review of trade trends: South Africa and the Indian Ocean Rim

Since 1990, intense diplomatic efforts have taken place to secure and negotiate trade treaties with South Africa's traditional trading partners (the European Union, in particular) and those countries in close geographic proximity. This article examines South Africa's trade links with some of its ‘non‐traditional’ trading partners, in particular the countries of the Indian Ocean Rim (IOR), in an attempt to ascertain the nature of the trade and its importance vis‐a‐vis the rest of the world. An examination of trade data for the years 1992‐5 indicates that trade with the IOR consists mainly of the mutual exchange of natural resource products and that this trade is growing much faster than South Africa ‘s trade in general. Given this trade dynamism, South Africa should pay increasing attention to international relations with these countries. South African trade with the Rim was also found to differ from trade with the rest of the world in that it comprises the mutual exchange of natural resource‐based products. This research shows that our imports and exports are positively related to the gross domestic product of our trading partners, and negatively related to their population size and distance from South Africa. Also, more open economies have absorbed more exports from South Africa. There is some ambiguity as to the role that distance plays in determining the level of imports into this country. The intensity indices computed in this article have to be viewed in the light of this research.     

Exchange rate volatility and agricultural trade under policy reforms in South Africa

Decades of government intervention have helped develop the South African agriculture sector to its present state. Policy reforms have included trade and exchange rate policies to increase the country's international competitiveness, reduce poverty and promote economic growth. These reforms are facilitating the growth in agricultural trade and South Africa's reintegration into the global economy. Annual agricultural exports and imports have increased. This paper uses annual data and a vector error-correction model to investigate the supply and demand relationships for agricultural trade flows in South Africa during the past four decades. The results show that prices, real exchange rates, domestic production capacity and real incomes have significant impacts on the country's agricultural trade. In particular, exchange rate volatility has negative impacts. This cannot be viewed solely as an exogenous source of macroeconomic instability in South Africa, as domestic policies play a crucial role in influencing the movement of exchange rates.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TOURISM AND TRADE IN SOUTH AFRICA

This article explores the relationship between tourist arrivals and trade in South Africa. Two analyses were conducted – a panel data analysis, which included tourism and trade data of 40 countries with South Africa, and a time‐series analysis that involved South Africa's main tourism and trade partners. Cointegration tests, Granger causality and Block exogeneity tests were used to investigate the nature of the relationship. The results of the panel data analysis show that for South Africa as a whole, there is indeed a long‐term relationship between tourist arrivals and trade, and that bidirectional causality exists. The results for the country case studies are mixed, although the evidence is stronger for the hypothesis that tourism causes trade.     

ADJUSTING SOUTH AFRICA'S FISCAL BALANCE FOR TERMS-OF-TRADE EFFECTS

Standard output gap‐based calculations and interpretations of the cyclical component of the fiscal balance may convey a misleading picture in countries such as South Africa which experience substantial movements in their terms of trade. This paper therefore adjusts South Africa's general government primary balance for terms‐of‐trade effects by means of an alternative calculation of the transitory component based on a measure of the real income gap rather than the real output gap. The results indicate that measures of the cyclical component of the budget balance based on real income and real output gaps generally yield broadly similar results over history, but during exceptional periods of rapid changes in commodity prices, the measures can be very different.     

Sudden Stops and Current Account Reversals: Potential Macroeconomic Consequences for South Africa

South Africa is one of the emerging market countries that have received a relatively large amount of foreign capital since the mid‐2000s. In South Africa's case, these inflows were partly used to build the country's foreign exchange reserves, but more particularly to finance continued large current account deficits. During the course of the past two years, however, adverse domestic political developments, combined with the potential negative impacts of the unwinding of quantitative easing policies and the normalising of monetary policy in the United States on emerging markets in general, has raised the spectre of a sharp slowdown in foreign capital flows to South Africa and an associated reversal of the current deficit. This paper explores the potential impact of such a development on macroeconomic conditions in South Africa. The analysis consists of macroeconometric model‐based alternative scenarios backed up by both the international evidence on the impact of such events and South Africa's own history.     

The impact of trade facilitation factors on South Africa's exports to a selection of African countries

Economic growth can be enhanced through increased trade among countries, provided the correct institutional structures are in place. A country's trade is dependent not only on its own trade facilitation reforms but also on those of the trading partners. This paper, using an augmented gravity model, examines trade facilitation factors that impact on South Africa's exports to other selected African countries. The results of the estimation reveal the following. An improvement in the customs environment within the importing country provides the largest gain in terms of increasing trade flows, followed by the regulatory environment and domestic infrastructure. Furthermore, adjacency and common language impact positively on South African exports, while distance between countries impacts negatively on it. Being part of the Southern African Development Community is also enhancing exports from South Africa, compared with being part of the East African Community.     

Mobile entrepreneurship: Informal sector cross-border trade and street trade in South Africa

This article presents the results of a study on the participation of non-South Africans in the handicraft/curio sector of street trade in South Africa in informal sector cross-border trade. The findings provide an introduction to the largely unexplored phenomenon of informal sector cross-border trade between South Africa and neighbouring states and challenge some of the common myths about non-South African street traders which pervade public discourses around migration. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is presently involved in prolonged and contentious negotiations to establish a free trade area for the region based on the SADC protocol on trade and development. At the same time, against a backdrop of anti-immigrant rhetoric, the South African government is developing a new migration policy. The article argues that informal cross-border entrepreneurs should not be disadvantaged by the renegotiation of regional trade agreements and the reformulation of South Africa's new migration policy.     

SOUTH AFRICA'S INTERGOVERNMENTAL FISCAL RELATIONS: AN EVOLVING SYSTEM

Across Africa, Latin America, Asia and the transition economies of Eastern Europe, the need to enhance the capability and capacity of sub‐national governments (SNGs) in providing public goods and services has become a main theme of development programmes. Central to this theme is the need to design an intergovernmental fiscal relations (IGFR) system that enhances the effectiveness of sub‐national governments in mobilizing revenues and implementing expenditure programmes. For South Africa, the post‐1994 dispensation has involved significant reforms to the structure and administrative capacity of the three spheres of government. Critical to these reforms is the need to formulate an IGFR framework that takes cognisance of South Africa's past, and serves as an effective policy tool in ensuring that public sector service delivery is well structured and managed. This paper provides an analysis of South Africa's evolving IGFR system. It outlines the historical evolution of the current IGFR system, identifies current challenges, and discusses implications that these challenges have for the functioning of the IGFR system. The general conclusion emerging from this study is that in the South African context, the key elements necessary for an effective IGFR system are in place. Ongoing reforms have improved the capacity of provincial and municipal authorities in carrying out their revenue and expenditure responsibilities. However, the evolving nature of South Africa's IGFR system requires that significant attention be devoted towards enhancing coordination between delivery departments and improving the capacity of many SNGs. These should not only aid the effective functioning of the IGFR system but also ensure that the gains of decentralisation are sustainable.     

The rationale for an employment guarantee in South Africa

This article considers what would happen if unemployed people in South Africa had a right to a minimum level of regular work on decent terms. It looks at the example of India, where a law was passed in 2005 guaranteeing rural households up to 100 days of work a year at minimum wage rates. More than 55 million households now participate in this programme – a rare example of a policy innovation bringing about significant change in a society. India's employment guarantee has important implications for social and economic policy and gives new meaning to the concept of ‘a right to work’. The article explores how structural inequality limits South Africa's development options, and considers early lessons from South Africa's Community Work Programme to make the case for an employment guarantee in South Africa.     

HAS SOUTH AFRICA LIBERALISED ITS TRADE?

This paper uses new tariff data to re‐evaluate the extent to which South Africa has liberalised its trade from the late 1980s. The paper finds that significant progress has been made in simplifying South Africa's tariff structure and reducing tariff protection, but further progress can be made in removing tariff peaks, reducing tariff dispersion, and lowering the anti‐export bias arising from protection. Further, although protection has fallen, the decline has been no faster than in other lower‐middle‐income economies. The paper also finds that estimates of the level of nominal and effective protection, and their rate of change, are sensitive to the choice of tariff measure (collection duties or scheduled tariff rates) and Input‐Output or Supply‐Use table, but that the sectoral structure of protection is largely unaffected.     

SOUTH AFRICA AND THE NEW PARTNERSHIP FOR AFRICA'S DEVELOPMENT: ECONOMIC SPIN-OFFS AND LINKAGES

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is a concerted effort by Africa's political leaders to develop a comprehensive and integrated strategic policy framework to raise current levels of socio‐economic development and reduce high levels of poverty across the African continent. The NEPAD framework recognises the need for African countries to pool their resources together in order to enhance regional development and economic integration. To this end, NEPAD emphasises capacity building and also seeks to solicit and disburse funds towards infrastructural development programmes and poverty alleviation projects, among others. South Africa's involvement with the rest of Africa has increased significantly since 1994. Trade exports, foreign direct investment (both market and resource‐seeking in nature) and public‐private partnerships have mushroomed in many parts of the continent. Many South African firms are providing the financial impetus for the infrastructural development and rehabilitation of African economies. This paper discusses salient economic linkages between South Africa and the rest of Africa within the framework of NEPAD. South Africa is the economic hub of sub‐Saharan Africa (and indeed of the African continent), with significant agricultural, manufacturing and services capacity. South African firms have invested in the development of a number of sectors in the rest of Africa, taking advantage of the new investment incentives offered by the NEPAD framework. The target sectors range from mining, the hospitality industry, engineering and construction, finance to telecommunications. These investments and economic involvements are crucial to the development of African countries and the relevant sectors that are important for the realisation of some of the objectives of NEPAD.     

Informal retailing through home-based micro-enterprises: The role of spaza shops

The informal trade sector constitutes an important part of the South African economy, with estimated sales of R32 billion in 2002. Its emergence is largely attributed to the divergence between the growth in population, especially the urban population, and employment growth in the formal economy. Growth of informal enterprises, especially in the retail sector, is also thriving on the demand of less affluent households, whose household needs for unsophisticated and affordable products are aptly supplied by the informal sector. The aim of this article is to focus on one of the prominent sub-sectors of informal retailing, namely spaza or tuck shops, defined as small retail businesses which operate from a residential stand or home. Particular attention is paid to the size, role and characteristics of spaza trade in South Africa, which is estimated to account for nearly 3 per cent of South Africa's retail trade.     

Reciprocity in trade relations between South Africa and Europe

This article sets out the arguments, from South Africa's perspective, for a free trade agreement (FTA) with Europe. It argues against signing the Lome Convention. These arguments have more force if the right kind of FTA can be negotiated, because the greater the benefit South Africa derives from such an agreement, the more the credibility of domestic economic policies will be enhanced. Some requirements for the ‘right’ type of FTA are discussed.     

African agricultural productivity and the transatlantic slave trade: evidence from Senegambia in the nineteenth century

Agriculture has played a central role in Africa's long‐term economic development. Previous research has argued that the low productivity of African economies has posed significant challenges to African efforts to produce an agricultural surplus or to develop commercial agriculture. Low agricultural productivity has also served as a key explanation for the transatlantic slave trade, on the basis that it was more profitable to export humans overseas than to grow and export produce. However, the field has suffered from a lack of comparable empirical evidence. This article contributes to this field by presenting quantitative data on historical land and labour productivity in Africa, from a case study of the agricultural productivity of Senegambia in the early nineteenth century. Focusing on five key crops, our results suggest that both land and labour productivity was lower in Senegambia than it was in all other parts of the world for which we have found comparable data. This article thus lends support to claims that stress ecological factors as one of the main determinants of Africa's historical development.     

Is there a link between BRIC foreign direct investment and SADC export performance?

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries have agreed to strengthen their economic ties, thus paving the way for enhanced trade and investment performance. South Africa's strategic value in BRICS is that it is a gateway to the opportunity-rich Southern African Development Community (SADC). By using South Africa as a production hub for exports to the surrounding region, foreign investors would have ready access to neighbouring markets. This article addresses the question of whether, and in what ways, foreign direct investment (FDI) from the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries to the SADC influences the SADC's export performance. A series of empirical analyses revealed a positive causation between BRIC FDI and SADC exports, offering a clear incentive for the SADC to rejuvenate its trade and investment policies and structures, and strengthen its ties with BRIC countries in the interests of attracting more FDI and building a strong and sustainable export sector.     

HOW EXPOSED IS THE SOUTH AFRICAN ECONOMY TO INTERNATIONAL TRADE?

Following the policies implemented during the 1990s, the South African economy has become more globalised. This is particularly the case as far as international trade is concerned. The implementation of trade reforms, in some cases faster than WTO commitments, has increased the exposure of the South African economy to international trade. Trade in intermediate inputs increases the external orientation of an industry and hence increases the economy's exposure to trade. This in effect means that the economy is more open to external trade shocks than is conveyed by the traditional openness measure which considers only the trade in final products. This paper uses a measure proposed by Campa and Goldberg (1997) to estimate the exposure to trade and finds that around 79 per cent of output in 2000 was accounted for by industries that became more exposed to international trade. Further, domestic production has become more reliant on imported inputs with around 60 per cent of South Africa's GDP being accounted for by industries with a negative external orientation (i.e. industries where imported input costs exceeded export revenue). In addition, it was also found that those sectors that became more externally oriented had lower inflation rates and higher growth rates than the other sectors in the economy for the period under analysis. The extent to which the increased exposure to international trade facilitated these developments remains topical for further research.     

Financial intermediation,regulation and the formal microcredit sector in South Africa

This article evaluates demand- and supply-side aspects of the formal microcredit sector in South Africa and the environment in which the sector is regulated. Although South Africa has a competitive financial sector relative to a sample of upper middle-income countries, the historical bias towards formal sector banking resulted in a lack of appropriate credit instruments for poorer people. In 1992, new regulations facilitated the legalisation of microfinance institutions and, by 2000, the sector had grown to over 2 per cent of total credit extended by the monetary sector, with over 1 300 institutions supplying microcredit to the public. The article presents the first statistics of different types of microcredit institutions as well as some of their disbursement trends, recorded since 1999 by the Micro Finance Regulatory Council. Thereafter, the demand for credit is assessed between 1995 and 2000, before best-practice regulation and South Africa's degree of compliance are discussed.     

LOGISTICS COSTS IN SOUTH AFRICA – THE CASE FOR MACROECONOMIC MEASUREMENT

In South Africa, logistics optimisation is largely managed from a microeconomic perspective. This paper makes the case for macroeconomic logistics measurement, presents the results of the country's national logistics cost model and proposes the first key macroeconomic logistics indicators for South Africa. The research shows that South Africa's logistics costs are higher than the global average. The majority of these costs are attributable to road transport, of which the biggest cost driver is fuel, which in turn is determined by volatile oil prices. This poses a significant exogenous risk to logistics cost management in South Africa. The risk can be mitigated through a structural adjustment in long‐distance freight transport (from road dominated to rail dominated). The paper concludes by proposing two key macroeconomic logistics indicators to facilitate this process.     

Tourism,business linkages and small enterprise development in South Africa

Although considerable attention is given to the prospects for developing small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs) in South Africa's tourism economy, very little relevant research has been undertaken in this regard. In this article, the findings are presented from over 60 detailed interviews conducted with key enterprises and entrepreneurs involved in tourism, outsourcing and small enterprise development in South Africa. The aim is to examine opportunities for outsourcing and business linkage development in South Africa's tourism economy, and to investigate the difficulties that confront the tourism SMME economy through examining the status of business linkages between large tourism enterprises and SMMEs in South Africa. The South African research is located within the context of existing works on tourism and small enterprise development in developing countries.