Merchandise trade with India excels

06 Sep '06

2 min read

Dr Ron Sandrey, a Trade Law Centre for Southern Africa (tralac) senior research fellow, comments on South Africa's Merchandise Trade with India.

While South Africa's trading relationship with China is attracting a lot of attention, it is important to consider the same relationship with India.

During 2005 imports into India from South Africa totaled some US $2,651 million, a figure that increased by 50.1 percent from 2004. This represented 1.9 percent of Indian global imports, a figure that has shown a downward trend over the last seven years.

By commodities, imports were dominated by gold ($1,846m), followed by coal (($171m) and pentaoxide chemicals ($149m). The average duty on these imports was calculated to be 15.88 percent.

Indian imports into South Africa similarly increased dramatically over the last year, and by December 2005 they were $1,102 million or 2.0 percent of the total imports. Although exactly half of the trade enters duty-free, the average duty that would have been assessed in the absence of any rebates was 11.01 percent.

These duties are mostly paid by the 30 percent of the imports that enter where the duties are assessed at 20 percent or more, a grouping that contains motor vehicles and their parts, and textiles, clothing and footwear.

Detailed analysis confirms that South Africa is doing very well in the Indian market given its global export mix and India's global import profile.

Trade Law Centre for Southern Africa