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Thinking strategically

IN AN editorial this week, I read that “South Africa could do much more to improve its export performance”. I agree completely with this but am once again left wondering if South African policy makers are thinking strategically about actually improving our trade performance.

Take for example the United States, who is negotiating two trade agreements that may well influence the rest of the world. The first is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the second is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Much has been written about these two agreements and so I am not going to elaborate on them, rather the idea of them.

American policymakers realised that there is much to gain domestically by engaging with countries across the Atlantic and Pacific. Furthermore, the TPP is a trade agreement which strategically cuts out China and incorporates China’s biggest rival – Japan.

Neither of these agreements has been concluded, yet both are highly visible. Apart from the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA), which I believe will not be concluded any time soon, what is South Africa doing? How are we going to improve our export performance; better yet, how are we planning on improving our export performance?

Africa is underdeveloped and the Chinese continue investing in the continent. The Brics Development Bank will further aid developing countries regionally and so with China being excluded from the TPP, should we not be engaging a “Trans-Indian Partnership” (TIP)? Imagine a trade agreement that includes the Brics countries (specifically India, China and South Africa to avoid too large a geographic spread) and perhaps incorporates the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu).

Any future trade agreement might go beyond Sacu as well and look to the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which held its annual summit on August 17 and 18. With President Robert Mugabe taking on the role of chairperson of SADC for the next year, I wonder whether Minister Rob Davies approaches such meetings with intention or as a spectator.

We do have the Trade, Development and Co-operation Agreement which governs South Africa’s bilateral trade with the European Union but we need to think broader than just Europe. With Africa’s potential to grow, the backing of China and the Bricks Development Bank, we are in an extremely strong position – provided we think strategically and focus on achievable outcomes.

Perhaps our policymakers have plans in place and I am just unaware or uninformed but if this is the case, I am sure there are millions more just like me.

I would therefore love to see these plans (assuming they exist) made as visible to us South Africans as the TTIP and the TPP are to the rest of the world. In other words, I would love a more transparent approach to our trade plans. More importantly though, I would love to see targets within the plans being achieved and not merely being drawn up.

- Fin24

* Geoffrey Chapman is a guest columnist and trade policy expert at the SABS. Views expressed are his own.

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