South Africans are mostly aware that the EU is a prime market for its agricultural produce. After the De Doorns industrial action at the beginning of the year we heard at least once from disgruntled strikers that food security was not the issue since most of the fruit was for the export market (thus excusing the interruption to the agricultural sector).
Do we know that it is starting to be a two-way street?
The latest Agritrade newsletter from the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) tells us that: "... a review of Eurostat data posted on the EC’s DG Agriculture website shows that the South African market is increasingly important to EU food and agricultural product exporters, with exports to South Africa growing 2.5 times as fast as the growth in overall EU food and agricultural product exports since 2002. Food and agricultural products have increased their share of total EU exports to South Africa from 3.2 to 5.5%, while South Africa’s food and agricultural trade surplus with the EU has fallen from €1,378 million in 2002 to €567 million in 2011".
Find the complete article here. Read about the CTA at www.cta.int.
Exporting is one of the chapters in The Agri Handbook.
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