UK trade and investment with South Africa is growing, in both directions

The UK Department of International Trade (DIT) on Wednesday released its latest “Factsheet” (actually a 17-page document) on bilateral UK-South Africa trade and investment. The Factsheet covered the four quarters ending at the conclusion of the second quarter of this year (Q2 2022) – or, on other words, Q3 2021, Q4 2021, Q1 2022 and Q2 2022. As it was a British document, all values were naturally given in pounds sterling. To sum up, in the period under review, total bilateral UK-South African trade in goods and services came to £10.7-billion. This was 6.3% higher than in the equivalent four quarter period up to the end of Q2 2021. South Africa was the UK’s 27th biggest trading partner and accounted for 0.7% of total British trade. The UK DIT ranked South Africa, in terms of gross domestic product, as the world’s 35th biggest economy in 2021.