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

Merle Holden and Alan Isemonger

Development Southern Africa, 1999, vol. 16, issue 1, 89-105

Abstract: 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.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03768359908440063 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:deveza:v:16:y:1999:i:1:p:89-105

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CDSA20

DOI: 10.1080/03768359908440063

Access Statistics for this article

Development Southern Africa is currently edited by Marie Kirsten

More articles in Development Southern Africa from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().