SA managed trade surplus of R240-billion: Kieswetter

SARS Commissioner Edward Kieswetter says the country has managed to achieve a trade surplus of R240-billion despite the lacklustre performance in exports.

Kieswetter indicated that trade, specifically imports from the United States, had dropped during the period under review.

SARS earlier announced that it had exceeded R2-trillion in revenue collections in the 2025-26 financial year for the first time in its history.

“We introduced a trade facilitation index that measures the efficiency with which we can facilitate goods to our ports, when we introduced it four years ago it was at 52% so it’s very pleasing that it now stands at over 75%. China, United States and Germany are still our largest export destinations and our import destinations, China, India and Germany, the United States have dropped a little bit there, but you can see that Germany, India and China are still very key trading partners of South Africa.”

Reporting by Naledi Mabitsela