SA loses its foothold in the global market [worse than apartheid sanctions]

[The_Right_Honourable_Brit]

Johannesburg - Three surprising trends emerge from an Absa analysis of 2005 trade data from the SA Revenue Service (Sars).

First is the extent to which Asia's role in South Africa's trade has grown, with Japan heading the list of export destinations and China the second-biggest supplier of South Africa's imports.

The second surprise is that nearly two-thirds of South Africa's exports in 2005 were manufactured goods (manufactures) while only about one-third were commodities.

Jacques du Toit, a senior Absa economist, explained the surprisingly large proportion of manufactures in the breakdown. "Many categories, which are generally perceived as basic commodities, also contain a big element of beneficiated goods," he said. Beneficiation takes place when value is added to basic commodities.

The third surprise is that South Africa's share of global trade, which shrank dramatically between the 1960s and 1994 because of trade sanctions against the apartheid government, has shrunk even further since 1994.

In 2005 South Africa's trade as a percentage of world trade was only 0.55 percent, just below the 0.6 percent between 1990 and 1994 and well below the peak of 1.43 percent in 1965 to 1969.

"The reason is that other economies - China, India and parts of Latin America, for instance - are growing faster," said Peter Draper, a research fellow at the SA Institute of International Affairs.

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[Chatmaster]

I would put allot of the lack of growth on Telkom's head, due to the fact that we cannot compete online with the international community, this is where allot of the international growth has been since '94...

 

[Cara]

This is very surprising ... would've expected at least a bit of growth in our world trade percentage when Apartheid was lifted.

 

[Syndyre]

This is very surprising ... would've expected at least a bit of growth in our world trade percentage when Apartheid was lifted.

I think the SA economy has grown, just not as fast as the rest of the world obviously.

 

[chiskop]

I think the SA economy has grown, just not as fast as the rest of the world obviously.

Well, not as fast as India/China.

 

[IamCanadian]

I would put allot of the lack of growth on Telkom's head, due to the fact that we cannot compete online with the international community, this is where allot of the international growth has been since '94...

I suspect that you are correct. Most families in North America now have access to cheap high speed internet, whether cable, satellite or ADSL and this is where the rubber meets the road.

The big question is can SA Telkom or some other company step up to provide high speed internet to the average person in SA? If they can they need to do it quickly and if not SA will probably be left further behind.

 

[Gatecrasher]

An exercise in ABSAlute futility.

What does a percentage of world trade represent? Is a bigger number better? Does it measure exports, imports or both? Greater exports would be good, greater imports would not.

Maybe SA is more self sufficient than it was. Or other countries trade figures have grown faster. For example, USA trade figures have increased rapidly over the last decade, yet they are producing less and importing much much more. Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing?

Any comparison to the 1960's is totally meaningless. The economic and indistrial landscape has changed dramatically in the past 40 years. The importance of raw materials has declined dramatically compared to the importance of technology .

The implication that "SA has lost its foothold in the Global market" is way too dramatic a headline for a change from 0.6% to 0.55% in 12 years.

The implication that our trade figures were somehow superior in the apartheid era is equally absurd.

Why not just quote the actual numbers (adjusted for inflation) and measure their growth - far more useful than trying to conjure a dramatic story out of the mundane.

On the other hand, if they would just conlcude the article by pinning the blame on Telkom, more power to them...

 

[The Confederados]

I guess this whole speech by the traitor was nothing more than propaganda garbage? http://www.fwdklerk.org.za/download_speech/04_06_14_DWS_Institut_Choiseul_S_PDF.pdf

 

[antowan]

I would put allot of the lack of growth on Telkom's head, due to the fact that we cannot compete online with the international community, this is where allot of the international growth has been since '94...

/me just nods in agreement.

 

[Syndyre]

An exercise in ABSAlute futility.

What does a percentage of world trade represent? Is a bigger number better? Does it measure exports, imports or both? Greater exports would be good, greater imports would not.

Maybe SA is more self sufficient than it was. Or other countries trade figures have grown faster. For example, USA trade figures have increased rapidly over the last decade, yet they are producing less and importing much much more. Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing?

I'm guessing it just measures SA's GDP as a percentage of global GDP, doesn't give many details though.

 

[Vrotappel]

I guess this whole speech by the traitor was nothing more than propaganda garbage? http://www.fwdklerk.org.za/download_speech/04_06_14_DWS_Institut_Choiseul_S_PDF.pdf

Great speech.

 

[Nick333]

The pie has just gotten bigger. It doesn't mean our piece of pie isn't bigger than it used to be. I'm not sure this is really any sort of issue at all.

 

[Darth Garth]

Great speech.

Just imagine if we had a leader of the caliber of Bush to handle our transition to democracy ...

 

[Syndyre]

If that was the case then the question would be..."What democracy?"

 

[ic]

Just imagine if we had a leader of the caliber of Bush to handle our transition to democracy ...

do you mean his Bushyness would side-step the transition to democracy by sending everyone off to fight & die for the rights to another country's resources? - maybe Nigeria needs a drug dealer war...

 

[derekc]

the title of this thread is misleading and a big misinterpretation. It's true that our government has not done enough to drive our economy but saying that it's worse than Apartheid sanctions is not appropriate. It leads me to think that the author of this thread prefers apartheid and hasn't considered the long term negative effects apartheid plays and will still play in our country.

It doesn't take a country 12 years to rebuild a country that was once split by race. It would take much longer than this. The fact other economic powers such as india and china were miles ahead of SA in terms of economic maturity therefore they are steaming ahead. They've had almost 40-50 years to sort themselves out and they're reaping the benefits.

Just visit the townships or a rural area and you'll understand what apartheid has done to SA and why our economy isn't growing as fast as india's or china's.

 

[Chatmaster]

Apartheid has nothing to do with the growth of our economy as far as I am concerned it is a useless topic that can only serve as an excuse for those that lack the ability to take responsibility for their actions. I suggest you compare the growth of economies internationally with the growth of the internet. There are offcourse other factors to BUT you will notice a very interesting trend when it comes to the internet! Have a look at internetworldstats.com