5 June 2025 — On 3 June 2025, Commissioners of the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) Mr Ayabonga Cawe; South African Revenue Service (SARS) Mr Edward Kieswetter; and the Chinese Ambassador to South Africa, His Excellency Mr WU Peng held a constructive meeting at the SARS Pretoria Head Office. The meeting focused on the current state of trade and trade facilitation between South Africa and China, — two key strategic partners in global commerce.
Trade is a fundamental enabler of economic growth, productivity improvement, competitiveness, and sustainable development. As trade volumes grow, the challenge is to facilitate trade while managing the risks posed by non-compliance and trade-based crimes. By simplifying, modernising and harmonising international trade, trade facilitation reduces costs, improves efficiency, and enhances the ease of doing business across borders.
The parties acknowledged the longstanding and growing importance of trade and economic relations between South Africa and China. They recognised the mutual benefits that arise from deepened cooperation, sustained engagement, and shared prosperity. All parties, however, stressed the need to speed up progress and facilitate trade in practical ways.
Discussions centred on how to improve trade relations, increase trade volumes, and enhance trade facilitation between the two countries. All parties expressed a firm commitment to strengthening collaboration, improving communication, and working jointly to ensure co-operation and information-sharing in trade remedy investigations and resolve trade barriers that hinder the smooth flow of goods and services.
The meeting reaffirmed the importance of dialogue and practical cooperation in building more efficient, transparent, and predictable trade systems between South Africa and China. Underscoring that trade facilitation plays a vital role in boosting economic growth, attracting investment, and integrating economies into global value chains.
Ambassador Peng remarked, “The relationship between China and South Africa has been elevated to an All-Round Strategic Cooperative Partnership for a New Era. China attaches great importance to developing economic and trade relations between China and South Africa, which in recent years have made great progress. Trade, investment, and personnel exchanges between the two countries have been increasingly strengthened. China supports South Africa’s industrialisation and modernisation process and is willing to contribute to South Africa’s inclusive-growth agenda, strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries, and jointly safeguard a rules-based multilateral trading system.
ITAC Commissioner Cawe said:
In an increasingly volatile and uncertain global trading environment, characterised by escalation and de-escalation, we are concerned about the impact these shifts are having on supply chains and the uncertainty they introduce in key product markets. This is manifest in rising inventories, which for a small open market economy like South Africa bring great risks of trade diversion and deflection. In this regard, trade remedies remain important to deal with instances of unfair trade, such as dumping. We remain open to engagement with our Chinese counterparts in securing the participation and co-operation of their exporters and other interested parties in such investigations, as a key trade-related element in our bilateral relationship.SARS Commissioner Kieswetter emphasized, “China, as the largest trading partner to South Africa, is ideally suited to strengthen a long-standing trading partner. I would like to see the relationship growing not only for South Africa as a marketplace for Chinese products, but as a destination for the assembly and manufacturing by Chinese investors. South Africa is also ideally suited as a strategic partner into the rest of Africa”.
This engagement marks an important step toward further deepening bilateral economic ties and catalyses development, resilience, and inclusive growth through trade.
Picture: ITAC Commissioner Mr Ayabonga Cawe; Chinese Ambassador Mr. WU Peng; SARS Commissioner, Mr. Edward Kieswetter; SARS Deputy Commissioner Mr. Johnstone Makhubu
