Trade deficit shrinks

Johannesburg - SA recorded a trade deficit of R512m for its trade with non-Southern African Customs Union trading partners in March after the R570.7m deficit of February, according to Customs & Excise figures released on Thursday.

It follows the record R17.380bn deficit in January and will thus be solace for the markets that had been expecting large deficits to persist this year as exports come under pressure.

A R3.5bn deficit was expected, a survey by I-Net Bridge had found, with forecasts varying from R-1.0bn to R-5.0bn.

October 2007's R14.7bn deficit was the previous worst ever.

Technical problems at SARS had led to a slight delay in the release of the data.

Precious and semi-precious stones and metals exports were the main surprise, as they lifted by a healthy R2.923bn. Another good export performance came from base metals and articles thereof, which lifted R1.284bn. Mineral product exports improved by R946m.

Aircraft to the value of 1.203 billion rand were included in the import statistics for March.

Mineral product imports increased by R1.071bn, while machinery and electrical appliance imports grew R2.271bn.

Imports of vehicles, aircraft and vessels increased by R2.037bn.

Massive revisions to South African trade data were reported in early February, with the outcome showing that a previously reported year-on-year deficit increase of R18.1bn in 2008 was actually a decrease of 7.73%, or R5.4bn.

The revised data shows that the cumulative revised trade deficit for January to December 2008 is R64.5bn versus a previously reported deficit of R88.0bn. This compares with an unrevised deficit of R69.9bn in 2007.

The December trade deficit also reverted back to R1.6bn from the originally published nine billion rand.

A R69.940bn deficit was recorded for 2007 from a R68.642bn deficit in 2006.

- I-Net Bridge