Building capacity to help Africa trade better

How can South Africa exploit new opportunities in agricultural export markets? Lessons from the New Zealand experience

Trade Reports

How can South Africa exploit new opportunities in agricultural export markets? Lessons from the New Zealand experience

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South Africa and New Zealand, both members of the Cairns Group, have undergone comprehensive agricultural sector reforms over the last twenty years. While New Zealand's reforms predated South Africa's by perhaps a decade, there are striking similarities in processes and outcomes. However, there are also equally striking differences, particularly in the international trade performance outcomes to date.

More particularly, New Zealand agriculture and the economy at large benefited from the Uruguay Round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations and the subsequent Agreement on Agriculture and establishment of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), while there is little evidence that South African agriculture has benefited, at least to the same extent (while there is also little evidence that South African agriculture suffered as a result).

The purpose of this research is to address the following questions:

  1. Why is South Africa still exporting principally the same agricultural products as almost a century ago?

  2. Did New Zealand re-gear itself, or was it just lucky?


Readers are encouraged to quote and reproduce this material for educational, non-profit purposes, provided the source is acknowledged. All views and opinions expressed remain solely those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of tralac.

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