🏭🇿🇦🇨🇳 South African Factories Crater as China Imports Stunt Revival

South Africa’s manufacturing sector has been in decline for more than three decades. Now, a deluge of cheap Chinese goods, intensified by US President Donald Trump’s tariff war, is putting what remains of its industrial base under renewed pressure.

Chinese exports to South Africa have more than doubled since the start of the decade, rising by almost $10 billion in the first eight months of this year compared with the same period six years ago.

South Africa also runs a large trade deficit with China, which accounts for more than a third of the country’s manufacturing imports and only about 5.9% of exports.

Moody’s Ratings latest Manufacturing Vulnerability Index ranks Africa’s largest economy the most exposed to Chinese trade competition of the eight nations it assessed on the continent.

It attributed this to South Africa’s “relatively large manufacturing sector with a high reliance on foreign, and specifically Chinese, value added in exports” and moderate and declining competitiveness.

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