South Africa, the only African country in China’s top 30 agricultural suppliers, ranked 28 in 2023.
Chinese President Xi Properly note The weekend, the tariff wars are “not winning.” The full results of the tariff war are still not clear on a global growth scale, but of course they are in the negative.
However, several countries may emerge as a sector wins the perspective. Brazil and Argentina, the farmers of the United States are developing in China as leading agricultural exporters, because US farmers face higher revenge tariffs in China.
This Financial times has published an article This weekend explaining what happened in this a few months. This said: “Brazil’s beef sales in the first quarter of 2025 in the first quarter of 2025, compared to local trade citizens, the Brazilian Soybeans trade was only a $ 1.15 award compared to 25 discounts in January.”
This is not new. China began to pass through the United States after the first trade friction on the United States in the first period of Donald Trump. I showed this schedule several times, and I described what happened to China’s agricultural imports.
China is more about China in agriculture, because China is a dominant player in global trade. In 2023, China was a leading agricultural importer, Accounting for 11% of global farm imports, More than $ 200 billion.
In 2023, the leading suppliers of agricultural products in China were Brazil, USA, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Vietnamese, France, Russia, Argentina, Chile, Ukraine, Netherlands and Malaysia.
The US position will decrease this year.
The current changes in China’s agricultural imports and the dominance of Latin America forced to claim that South Africa had to place itself among the main suppliers of household products.
South Africa is the only African country in China’s top 30 agricultural suppliers and 28 in 2023. South Africa is still $ 218 billion in the Chinese agricultural market ($ 979 million), $ 2023.
Given this reality and China Efforts to diversify agricultural suppliersThe South African message, which is interested in the Chinese government, must be more solid and convincing to promote agricultural exports.
South Africa has an annual excess of an annual agricultural exporter, which exports about half of its annual production. In 2024, the agricultural exports to South Africa organized a record record. This is expending to imports the import of agricultural products from anywhere near the world of money, every year, which is $ 218 billion.
Among other things in South Africa, among other things, there are higher importing tariffs and phytosanitary restrictions on various products.
Today, China must open the South African market with China to open and strengthen agricultural trade with our country. This should be the subject of talk in icons with the Chinese government.
Brazil and Argentine farmers cannot be the only winner in this difficult time; South Africa agriculture should be part of this global story.
Wandile Sihlobo, South Africa (Agbiz) is the chief economist of the Chamber of Agriculture.
