The UK Department of International Trade (DIT) on Wednesday released its latest “Factsheet” (actually a 17-page document) on bilateral UK-South Africa trade and investment. The Factsheet covered the four quarters ending at the conclusion of the second quarter of this year (Q2 2022) – or, on other words, Q3 2021, Q4 2021, Q1 2022 and Q2 2022. As it was a British document, all values were naturally given in pounds sterling.

To sum up, in the period under review, total bilateral UK-South African trade in goods and services came to £10.7-billion. This was 6.3% higher than in the equivalent four-quarter period up to the end of Q2 2021. South Africa was the UK’s 27th biggest trading partner and accounted for 0.7% of total British trade. The UK DIT ranked South Africa, in terms of gross domestic product, as the world’s thirty-fifth biggest economy in 2021.

UK exports to South Africa during these four quarters had a value of £3.8-billion, which was 9.3% above the figure for the equivalent period in 20/21. UK imports from South Africa amounted to £6.9-billion, which was 4.7% up on the previous equivalent period. (South Africa thus enjoyed a strong trade surplus with the UK of £3.1-billion.) While South Africa was the UK’s twenty-seventh largest export market, it was the UK’s twenty-first largest source of imports.

Of the UK’s exports to South Africa in the four quarters under review, 57.3% were in the form of services, worth £2.2-billion (which was 16.3% higher than during the previous equivalent period), while 42.7% were goods, with a value of £1.6-billion (a rise of 1.2%). Of British imports from South Africa, 87.4% were in the form of goods (worth £6-billion, and an increase of 3.6% over the equivalent 2020/21 period) and 12.6% (or £871-million) in the form of services (but representing an increase of 12.8%).

Regarding foreign direct investment (FDI), these statistics were reported in terms of calendar years, the latest being 2020. During that year, the stock of UK FDI in South Africa came to £19.4-billion, which was 36.8% higher than the figure for 2019. In 2020 South Africa accounted for 1.2% of UK outward FDI. Total UK outward FDI in 2020 totalled £1.7-trillion, the biggest recipient being the US (24.1%) followed by the Netherlands (11.2%).

As for South African FDI in the UK, in 2020 this amounted to £4-billion, which was 16.2% up on the figure for 2019. South Africa was responsible for 0.2% of foreign investment in the UK in 2020. The main source of inward FDI into the UK that year was also the US (24.8%), again followed by the Netherlands (10.4%).