Part of this has been due to the slow global recovery. But this is not the whole story, as South Africa’s export performance has lagged that of its emerging economy peers who have faced the same global environment.
Slow export growth was also an outcome of the widespread stoppages in the mining sector last year, which adversely affected the export performance of our main source of exports. But non-mining exports have also underperformed, and we need to learn from the experience of countries such as Germany as to how to improve competitiveness under adverse circumstances.