South Africa: Boosting production of small value chains will ensure local is abundant

Published 2020년 12월 3일

Tridge summary

The South African government is developing a localisation strategy to promote local production and reduce reliance on imports, with a focus on the agriculture, food & beverages sector. This sector has accounted for about 8% of the country's annual imports over the past five years. The strategy will aim to reduce imports of poultry products, sunflower oil, sugar cane, and animal foods by improving domestic production, and will also consider labour-intensive value chains to address unemployment. The government will need to be mindful of the potential impact on trading partners and consider providing incentives rather than using import tariffs. The strategy will also look at expanding export markets for South African agricultural products, particularly in India and China.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

The government is drafting a localisation strategy as part of measures underpinning its economic reconstruction and recovery plan. The agriculture, food & beverages sector has accounted for about 8% of SA’s annual imports over the past five years, an average value of $6.5bn. This makes it a worthwhile sector to be explored in promoting localisation. The top 10 products on the import list account for 46% of all agriculture, food and beverages imports. These are rice (7%), poultry (7%), wheat (6%), alcohol (5%), sugar cane (5%), palm oil (4%), beer from malt (4%), protein concentrates (3%), sunflower oil (3%) and unspecified animal foods (2%). This list might draw the attention of policymakers, or even persuade them to explore ways of reducing imports in this category. But this is not where the attention should be. The focus should be on small and niche value chains in which SA might have the capability to improve domestic production. The top 10 imports list includes some products ...

Source: Farmingportal