South Africa

JOHANNESBURG – Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma has proposed that the target for bilateral South African/Indian trade be increased to $15-billion a year by 2014. Speaking in Johannesburg, he says that bilateral trade is growing so fast that the current target of $10-billion annually, which was meant to have been achieved by 2012, will actually be achieved by the end of this financial year (March 31). “The balance of trade is happily and heavily in favour of South Africa and will remain so,” he highlights. This is due to large-scale Indian imports of South African gold, diamonds and coal, besides other products. He praises South Africa for providing leadership within the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) in the negotiating of a preferential trade agreement (PTA) between Sacu and India. Sharma stresses that such a PTA will complete a triangle of PTAs within the India, Brazil and South Africa Dialogue Forum group (better known as Ibsa). He points out that there already is a PTA between the South American trade bloc, Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay), and India, and between Sacu and Mercosur. “We’ve managed to dynamise that [PTA] process,” highlights South African Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies. “Already, India is our sixth-largest export market.” He adds that India now ranks eighth as a source of South African imports, and he hopes that the PTA between Sacu and India will soon be concluded.

PRETORIA – South Africa’s invitation to join the Bric (Brazil, Russia, India, China) group of countries is an affirmation of its role in the world economy and will boost trade and investment, the International Marketing Council says. “It can expect to boost investment and trade opportunities for the country, as it has done for the other four States comprising the informal grouping,” the council says in a statement. According to the International Monetary Fund, Bric will account for 61% of global growth in three years. The council says that the fact that South Africa has the opportunity to be affiliated to the group underlines two main points – the country is recognised as a developing economy of significance and is the gateway to Africa. “A new world order is unfolding where economic clout and, thus, political power are shifting from West to East, with the Bric countries as the visible face of this movement,” the council adds. The invitation to join Bric, combined with its renewed membership of the United Nations Security Council, would enhance South Africa’s influence. “Huge new opportunities will open up for South Africa on the investment and trade front. Private companies may also find market access into the Bric countries easier, and partnerships with companies from this grouping might evolve.” South Africa must use the opportunity to increase its competitive edge.

PRETORIA – The toll tariff structure for the Gauteng freeways is with the Minister of Transport, Sibusiso Ndebele, awaiting his approval, says the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) manager Alex van Niekerk. Toll fees will be levied on most of Gauteng’s highways from June this year. “We finished our work last year and now we hope to get it out there as soon as possible, so that people can stop speculating on what the toll fees will be,” notes Van Niekerk. He adds that Sanral remaines convinced that a registered electronic transponder (etag) user will pay around 50c/km, before discounts, as the agency has noted since the inception of the GFIP. “But, of course, it will be more expensive if you are not a registered user.” Van Niekerk says that the 12c/km tariff quoted in a prominent newspaper in early January was incorrect. More than 30 toll gantries had already been erected along the freeways that make up the 185-km GFIP network. These gantries will be fitted with the toll collection equipment that will recognise the etag in a vehicle, while also classifying the type of vehicle to determine price. Toll fees will then be deducted from users’ registered etoll accounts.

Africa & the world

WASHINGTON – Economic growth in the world's wealthier nations is still too slow to create enough jobs for the tens of millions who lost theirs during the worst global recession since World War Two, the World Bank says. In a report detailing its outlook for 2011, the multilateral lender forecast that the global economy will expand 3,3% this year, softer than the 3,9% expansion seen during 2010. Growth in the developing world will sharply outstrip growth in mature economies. The World Bank forecast growth in emerging economies of 6% in 2011, weaker than last year's 7% rate. Rich countries, in contrast, will grow only 2,4%, down from 2,8% for 2010. "The recovery in many high-income countries has not been strong enough to make major inroads into high unemployment in spare capacity," the report states. The US, the world's largest economy, is a case in point. The economy exited its worst recession in generations in the summer of 2009. But, at 2.6% on latest count, growth has been too soft to put a meaningful dent in a stubbornly high jobless rate – now at 9,4%. The World Bank predicts that the US economy will grow 2,8% in 2011, largely in line with a median forecast of 2,7% in a Reuters poll of private sector economists. In Europe, recovery has been hampered by persistent worries about highly indebted countries, like Greece and Portugal, which have kept borrowing costs high and led to severe market disruptions.

WASHINGTON – Increased trade is one of the best ways to fight poverty, so rich countries should do more to open their markets to goods from developing countries, a report issued says. The report by the International Trade Centre (ITC), a body that helps developing countries benefit from more trade, says that poor countries could also boost each other’s commerce by removing nontariff barriers, such as red tape, that hamper exports. “Poor countries cannot grow and reduce poverty without exports – thus market access and market entry are critical,” says the ITC, a joint agency of the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations. The report says that special, or “preferential”, trading arrangements by rich governments, allowing a range of imports from developing countries to come in duty-free, made a significant contribution. But the $1,6-billion in tariffs that least-developed countries, the 50 poorest countries, saved in 2008 from such arrangements was almost matched by the $1,4-billion they still paid in duties on imports to rich economies in the same year, the latest for which comprehensive data are available. An analysis of trade flows by the ITC shows that developing countries as a whole paid $50,1-billion in tariffs in 2008 to the European Union, the US, Canada and Australia, including $25,3-billion from China and $2,2-billion each from India and Brazil.

KHARTOUM – With investment and security South Sudan could become a food exporter and end its chronic food dependency within a decade, the United Nations (UN) World Food Programme says. WFP Sudan Regional Director Amer Daoudi says that the UN agency is working with South Sudan, which is voting to become an independent nation in 2011, to build strategic grain reserves and a road network to link rural farmers to urban markets. "South Sudan has the potential to be not only self-sufficient but a major exporter of fresh produce," Daoudi says. "If all things go well, if the international community remain engaged, if everything continues to improve . . . it would not take more than a decade for the South," adds. But, he says, all other areas of South Sudan's economy must be developed in tandem to allow agriculture to progress. After decades of north–south civil war, a 2005 peace deal created a semi-autonomous government in the South and allowed Southerners to vote in a secession referendum, which ends on January 15. The south is one of the least-developed areas of the world, with little infrastructure and a heavily armed population with internal conflict often disrupting farming.