SA’S TRADE WITH BELN SHOWS R14.5BN BALANCE

MBABANE - South Africa’s trade with Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho and Namibia (BELN) for November 2024 shows a preliminary trade balance surplus of R14.5 billion.
These countries are considered ‘BELN’ within the Southern Africa n Customs Union (SACU), which means they share a common external tariff and customs revenue pool. According to the preliminary trade statistics for November 2024 released by SARS last week, the R14.5 billion preliminary trade balance surplus for November 2024 was a result of exports of R20.7 billion and imports of R6.2 billion. Exports increased by R0.9 billion (4.6 per cent) between October and November 2024 and imports decreased by R0.3 billion (-5.0 per cent) over the same period.

Compared

The preliminary cumulative trade balance for 2024 was a surplus of R128.2 billion, compared to R118.9 billion in 2023. It is worth noting that South Africa is Eswatini’s main trading partner, whereby SA exports to Eswatini mostly including refined petroleum, corn and electricity, while major imports from Eswatini to SA are raw sugar, scented mixtures and sawn wood. SACU is the oldest customs union in the world, established in 1910 between five member States: Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa. The union allows these five countries to share trade-related customs, and excise revenue and for the free movement of goods and services within the union. All customs and excise duties are collected in a common revenue pool and shared among the countries according to a revenue-sharing formula. South Africa is the largest contributor to the pool, making up 97 per cent of the total contribution, followed by Namibia at 1.4 per cent, Botswana at 1.0 per cent, Lesotho at 0.4 per cent and Eswatini at 0.2 per cent.

Highest

It is worth noting that for the 2024/2025 financial year, Eswatini again received the highest SACU receipts. It was reported that in this financial year, Eswatini will receive a total of E13.06 billion in SACU receipts.  Compared to the 2023/2024 level, SACU revenue for 2024/25 grew by 115 per cent. In the 2023/202/4 financial year, the country’s SACU receipts were E11.75 billion and were 102 per cent higher than the E5.8 billion of 2022/2023. All customs, excise and additional duties (trade taxes) collected in the SACU common customs area are paid into the common revenue pool and shared among member States. Member States’ shares of the pool is disbursed or determined by the SACU agreement’s revenue-sharing formula. The current revenue-sharing formula has three components: The Customs Component, the Excise Component and the Development Component. The Customs share is allocated based on each country’s share of intra-SACU imports.

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