I Refuse To Believe Zimbabwe Had A Trade Surplus Of $185m With South Africa

The latest reports from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat) show that in the 11 months from January to November 2017 Zimbabwe had a trade surplus of about $185m with South Africa. This after we exported goods worth about $2.18 billion to our southern neighbours compared to imports of about $2 billion.

Those are the official statistics and it means that the exports for the three months, September to November amounted to about $780 million compared to imports of about $500 million. That would mean a trade surplus of about $280 million in those 3 months which offset the $98 million trade for the first 8 months of that year thus the reported $185 million surplus for the 11 months.

Note however that the trade surplus is just for our trade with South Africa and not our total trade balance. The country is still a net importer unlike South Africa. Whilst Zimbabwe had a trade deficit of $1.46 billion for the January to November period, South Africa had a surplus of $5.2 billion (ZAR65 billion) for the same period. So the fact that we had a surplus position with the South Africans does not mean fortunes have reversed.

In trying to address the perennial trade deficit, the Zimbabwean government imposed some import restrictions on certain goods. This move did not stop imports from South Africa from increasing from $1.94 billion in the comparative period in 2016 to $1.997 in 2017. The restrictions are however the reason the increase was only $57 million.

The restrictions on basic goods have since been relaxed and we have the foreign currency shortages to thank for that.

There also was the other issue of there being a foreign currency shortage in the country which led to government prioritising certain imports over others. That means traders who wanted to import goods not on the priority list or on the restricted list were either out of luck and out of business or had to be creative.

Comments made by the Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers reveal that the retailers turned to the black market for their foreign currency needs. The retailers actually used that as their reason for the price hikes, citing high cost of forex on the black market.

Those same retailers also had a huge chunk of the products they offer put on the restricted list, a list which had hundreds of goods on it. You can bet your bottom dollar they got creative in getting those goods into the country. This would also drive their costs up and in turn that would be passed on to the consumers. Yet another reason for price hikes it is.

Now the black market is not a known entity, all that can be done is offer educated estimates as to the value of transactions there. The nation’s statisticians do not dare attempt to include those estimates in the official statistics. This means a huge chunk of the trade was not included in the official statistics.

It is for these reasons I refuse to believe we had a trade surplus with our biggest trade partner South Africa.

It is also interesting that the imports from South Africa are still mostly consumptive products. It might be that we just don’t purchase capital goods from South Africa because the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries president had us believing capital goods now make up a large chunk of our imports.