S. Africa Records Trade Surplus

South Africa recorded a trade balance surplus of R6.7 billion (494.7 million) for September 2016, the South Africa Revenue Service announced on Monday, Fin24 reported.

Sars said the year-to-date deficit—from January 1 to September 30—of R9.95 billion is an improvement on the deficit for the comparable period in 2015 of R37.19 billion. These statistics include trade data with Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland.

The trade data excluding BLNS for September 2016 recorded a trade balance deficit of R3.05 billion. In line with international statistical best practice, the February 2016 to July 2016 export figures have been adjusted by R23.9 billion, resulting in the year-to-date trade balance being revised downwards from a R7.41 billion trade surplus published in August 2016 to R9.95 billion trade deficit in September 2016.

Sars said the R23.9 billion adjustment is as a result of revisions to the gold exports by the SA Reserve Bank which supplies the gold export data to Sars. These gold revisions (for the first half of 2016) have been disclosed by Sarb in the September 2016 Quarterly Bulletin.

The revisions relate mainly to adjustments made for gold that was moved to facilities outside South Africa, but with ownership of the gold retained by South African entities.

The R6.70 billion trade balance surplus for September 2016 is attributable to exports of R98.92 billion and imports of R92.22 billion. Exports for the year-to-date grew by 5.8% from R770.20 billion in 2015 to R815.24 billion in 2016. Imports for the year-to-date of R825.19 billion are 2.2% more than the imports recorded in January to September 2015 of R807.39 billion.