Special and differential treatment
South Africa and China: the agricultural and fisheries trading relationship
Placing South Africa's agricultural trade with China in perspective
Authors:
R. Sandrey; T. Fundira
Publisher:
Trade Law Centre for Southern Africa , 2008
A feature of world trade over the last ten years has been the dramatic growth of China's trade with the world. This paper examines the agricultural component of Chinese trade with South Africa, which it aims to place in broader perspective of China's global trading relationships.
The authors note that during the first six months of 2007 agricultural imports were 3.8 percent of total Chinese imports, a figure down from the 6.6 percent during the last six months of 1996. By value, total agricultural imports were US$ 16,459 million during this six-month period, up from US$ 5,030 million in the final six months of 1996. By product, the main imports were soybeans (USA and Brazil), cotton (USA and India) and palm oil (Malaysia and Indonesia).
The paper examines Chinese global agricultural imports and and then moves sequentially through imports from the following countries and regions: South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, India, USA, The EU, ASEAN.
The report details the aggregate position for each of these sources, followed by an analysis of the top 15 agricultural products (and then the top-ten fisheries products). For the individual sources, a common template is used whereby data is presented for the first year (ending September 1996) and the last two September years along with their most favoured nation (MFN) (i.e., non tariff rated quota or TRQ) tariff rates, market shares, variability of the imports and the main competitors and their market shares.
(adapted from author)
