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South African International trade indicators
September 17, 2007Do you have questions relating to South African foreign trade? With our International Trade Indicators database getting the right answer is easy.
Which countries are South Africa's main trading partners?
Our trade database contains South African import and export data classified according to industries (SIC e.g. agriculture, mining, real estate, forestry) or products (HS e.g. vehicles, plastics, textiles, vegetables). We use use HS and SIC codes to classify our trade data, making it easy to find the right product or industry. The Harmonised System (HS) is is an internationally standardised system of names and numbers for classifying traded products while the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) is a system for classifying industries by a four-digit code.
The table below is from our trade database and illustrates South Africa's main trading partners for 2006 and how the balance is shifting torwards trading with China, the East and the Middle East.
| South African Trade (% of total) | ||||||
| Imports | ||||||
| Germany | China | United States | Japan | Saudi Arabia | Total | |
| 1996 | 15,2 | 2,1 | 12,9 | 8,3 | 0,8 | R113,3bn |
| 2001 | 14,7 | 4,2 | 11,9 | 6,7 | 6,8 | R218,5bn |
| 2006 | 12,7 | 10,2 | 7,6 | 6,6 | 5,3 | R459,7bn |
| Exports | ||||||
| Japan | United States | United Kingdom | Germany | Netherlands | Total | |
| 1996 | 7,4 | 8,2 | 6,7 | 4,8 | 2,9 | R116,6bn |
| 2001 | 7,8 | 12,1 | 9,6 | 8,0 | 3,8 | R252,0bn |
| 2006 | 10,8 | 10,5 | 8,1 | 6,9 | 4,7 | R390,7bn |