South Africa’s trade surplus of R169 billion for January to September 2026, up from R117.5bn a year earlier, presents the institutions steering the country’s export economy with a harder question than the headline numbers suggest: whether policy and structural conditions can sustain competitiveness, or whether the country is riding a commodity price wave that could recede as quickly as it rose.
The figures come from the South African Revenue Service. Export earnings rose 7.2%, outpacing a 4.1% increase in imports. Yet analysts argue the surplus says less about the country’s ability to sell goods abroad than about favourable pricing and weak demand at home.
Chris Hattingh, executive director of the Centre for Risk Analysis, was blunt when asked whether the surplus reflected export competitiveness or commodity fortunes. “Mostly prices and weak imports,” he said. In his reading, the improvement rested on higher commodity earnings rather than broad-based export growth.
The composition of the gains supports that view. SARS credits platinum group metals, gold and zinc ores for September’s export performance, while the South African Reserve Bank reported that gold exports surged in the first quarter even as merchandise imports fell. Manufacturing has not carried the surplus: base metal export values fell 3% in the first nine months, and January saw sharp declines in machinery, vehicle and chemical exports.
Sanisha Packirisamy, an economist at Momentum Group, said the surplus grew largely because South Africa earned more from goods sold abroad, but that the gains were concentrated in a narrow range of products. “Higher global prices helped boost the figures, though it is hard to say precisely how much of the total gain came from higher prices versus shipping larger volumes of goods,” she said. Her estimate puts the additional contribution from mining, precious metals and stones at R130bn, while revenues from all other exports combined fell by roughly R20bn.
That distinction matters for accountability in economic policy. A larger surplus does not necessarily mean producers are becoming more competitive internationally. Higher commodity prices can lift export values without any increase in production volumes, and weaker imports can widen the surplus without improving the country’s ability to sell more abroad.
Meanwhile, the concentration itself is a governance risk. Minerals and precious metals accounted for almost half of goods export earnings in early 2026, according to Packirisamy, who warned that this leaves the economy exposed to price movements beyond its control. “Because our export earnings rely so heavily on a few products, any drop in global commodity prices quickly hits mining profits, tax revenues, investment and the value of the rand,” she said. Hattingh noted that platinum and gold made up about 18% of exports in 2025, with the top 10 products accounting for 50.5%. The vulnerability showed in August, when exports fell 5.8% month on month as sales of platinum group metals, gold and zinc weakened.
The uncertainty surrounding the African Growth and Opportunity Act has sharpened these concerns. The United States trade preference programme allows eligible African countries to export certain products duty-free, and South Africa’s possible exclusion has alarmed exporters in clothing, citrus and chemicals, sectors where margins are narrow and preferential access makes a material difference. Hattingh argued the country’s overall exposure to the US market is relatively limited: the US accounts for about 7% of total exports, compared with China’s 11.7%. In 2024, goods benefiting from AGOA amounted to R71.5bn, while precious metals already enter the US duty-free. “The US is only 7% of exports. The sectors that use AGOA, such as apparel, citrus and some chemicals, live on thin margins. Losing a 3% to 10% preference can wipe out that margin,” he said.
Wandile Sihlobo, presidential envoy on agriculture and land and chief economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa, said exclusion would not amount to a ban on exports to the US. South African goods would instead face additional tariffs. “Simply put, if South Africa were excluded from AGOA, the country would face an additional Most Favoured Nation tariff of around 3.4% on top of the existing tariffs the current US administration added to various countries,” he said. For products facing a 12.5% tariff, that would lift the rate to 15.9%, with effects varying by industry depending on existing tariffs, margins and alternative suppliers.
Sihlobo placed the risk in historical context. Agricultural exports to the US totalled $504 million in 2025, down 3% from the previous year despite tariffs of about 30%. Exports fell 11% year on year in the third quarter to $144m and 39% in the fourth quarter to $81m, after a 90-day pause in higher tariffs. This year has brought recovery, with agricultural exports to the US rising 56% between the first and second quarters of 2026 to reach $123m. The US accounts for about 4% of South African agricultural exports, including citrus, berries, grapes, wine, fruit juices and nuts. “Still, one could argue that while this would be a challenging path, it would not necessarily be as catastrophic as we have faced in the past, when we faced much higher US tariffs and still managed to compete,” Sihlobo said, while cautioning that the impact on some industries should not be understated.
Packirisamy noted that higher tariffs could force firms to absorb costs, cutting profits or passing them to customers, and that trade uncertainty makes companies hesitate to build new factories or expand production, which stalls job creation.
The debate also revives a longer-running policy question. In 2014, South Africa faced pressure to graduate from AGOA because of its upper-middle-income status and move toward a bilateral agreement with the US. That path was complicated by membership of the Southern African Customs Union, which limits the country’s ability to negotiate bilateral agreements independently of the region.
What changed, by contrast, is the range of markets beyond the US and EU. Diversification, analysts agree, requires more than new destinations. Packirisamy warned that a slowdown in China and the European Union could hit mining and manufacturing simultaneously, noting that China buys over half of South Africa’s iron ore and that the EU is a major buyer of vehicles and machinery. Hattingh similarly argued that the greater vulnerability lies not in dependence on individual partners but in the composition of exports. China’s position illustrates the imbalance: SARB figures show it supplies 35.7% of manufactured imports while accounting for only 5.9% of manufactured exports, pointing to room for South African manufacturers to expand into that market.
Agriculture shows what alternative markets can offer. Agricultural exports reached $4.1bn in the second quarter of 2026, 10% higher than a year earlier, with Africa taking 40%, Asia and the Middle East 24% and the EU 21%. But Sihlobo stressed that exporters need smoother border clearance, reliable logistics, food safety compliance, cold-chain storage and distribution networks to compete. “Export diversification must be framed correctly; it is not a replacement for the US, EU, UK, Africa, and other markets. These remain key, and we must work to retain our access to them,” he said.
Domestic conditions remain the binding constraint, and here the accountability questions land squarely on the state. Packirisamy cited high electricity rates, water shortages and port delays, saying exporters pay extra for backup power and water while slow transport erodes their edge against foreign rivals. Hattingh estimated logistics costs will reach R1.16 trillion, or 14.6% of GDP, the highest since records began in 2003, compared with 11.2% a decade ago. Electricity tariffs rise by 8.76% for direct Eskom customers and 9.01% for municipal customers in 2026/27, while crime costs the economy about R700bn a year. Rail payload rose 4% in the year to October 2025, but Hattingh said reforms remain early and fragile, with transport costs expected to add R117bn to the logistics bill in 2026.
The test over the next five years, on Hattingh’s framing, is whether manufactured and processed goods claim a larger share of exports and whether the top 10 products fall below their current 50.5% share. Cheaper electricity, faster ports and rail, and lower compliance costs, he argued, are central to that outcome. For Packirisamy, progress should be measured by reaching more foreign countries with a wider variety of products, alongside the export split by country and product and South Africa’s share of global exports.