SA shows trade deficit in July - Sars

Pretoria - SA had a trade deficit of R9.22bn for July - excluding trade with Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland (BLNS), the SA Revenue Service (Sars) announced on Monday.
            
This deficit for July is as a result of exports of R82.88bn and imports of R92.10bn. Exports increased by R4.77bn (6.1%) from June 2015 to July 2015 and imports increased by R10.21bn (12.5%) over the same period.

The cumulative deficit for 2015 (excluding BLNS trade) is R85.50bn compared to R111.65bn in 2014.

READ: SA records R2.5bn trade deficit

While SA's exports of wood pulp and paper increased by 44.9% in July (not including BLNS trade), exports of chemical products declined by 9.7% compared to June, for instance.

As for imports, that of vehicles and transport equipment increased the most (20.3%) followed by equipment components (19%), chemical products (13.9%) and mineral products (12.9%).

Including BLNS trade, SA showed a R0.40bn trade deficit for July 2015 due to exports of R94.21bn and imports of R94.61bn.

Exports increased by R4.26bn (4.7%) from June 2015 to July 2015 and imports increased by R10.14bn (12.0%) over the same period.

The cumulative deficit for 2015 is R25.23bn compared to R53.37bn in 2014.

The biggest increase in exports in July (when one includes BLNS trade) was in wood pulp and paper (up 39%), while the exports of precious metals and stones had decreased by 5.4%.

SA's trade deficit with Europe increased by 50.8% from a deficit of R5.2bn in June to one of R7.8bn in July.

In relation to the rest of Africa, SA exported R26.3bn, while importing R9.8bn. July's trade surplus of R16.5bn is a 9.2% decrease in comparison to June, though.

SA's trade deficit of R14.6bn with Asia in July is an increase of 7.1% in comparison with June and the trade deficit of R972m with the American zone is a decrease of 10.1% compared to June.

As for BLNS countries, SA showed a trade surplus of R8.82bn in July compared to June - exports of R11.34bn and imports of R2.51bn.

The cumulative surplus for BLNS trade for 2015 is R60.27bn compared to R58.27bn in 2014.

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