RSA International Trade

The South African international trade time-series database provides a detailed up-to-date historical overview of South Africa's external goods trade.

Database features

• The database consists of more than 250,000 annual, quarterly and monthly foreign trade time-series from as early as 1988 to the present.
• Over 15,000 traded commodities classified by Harmonised System (HS) 8-digit product classification code.
• Commodity totals at HS 2, 4 and 6-digit level.
• Broad economic classification of all commodities available.
• 145 industries at International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) and South African Standard Industrial Classification (SA SIC) (1993 Rev 3) 4-digit.
• Industry totals at ISIC 1, 2 and 3-digit level.
• Over 170 countries and 20 regions (EC, NAFTA, SADC, Africa, etc.) of origin for imports or destination for exports with South Africa.
• Regional import and export totals are available all HS and ISIC levels.
• Both value and volume data are available for exports and imports (volume data only for HS 8-digit). Value data is in South African Rand and US Dollar.
• Comprehensive online meta-data includes a descriptive data overview, instructions for accessing the database, an explanation of the various mnemonic schemes utilised in the database and a complete listing of the database contents. Each time-series is extensively defined with cross-referencing to source. The documentation is embedded in the database and presented in HTML format on the Internet.
• The complete trade database is available to browse and download over the Internet using the EasyData website.
• Trade data can be downloaded in MS Excel and CSV formats.
• Internet access to the data combines an intuitive point and click hierarchical interface with basic tabulation, graphical and analytical features.
• A Windows based browser is optionally available to database subscribers for local data manipulation on the user's own PC.

EasyData RSA International Trade Indicators website screenshot

Primary data sources

• Commissioner for Customs and Excise
• UN Comtrade
• SARB (South African Reserve Bank)
• SA Government Dept. of Mineral and Energy
• Quantec Research

Update frequency

The RSA International Trade database is updated monthly.

Delivery

Access to the RSA International Trade database is through our EasyData website, which allows users to browse and download all the desired data in MS Excel or CSV format.