Abstract:
Over the past 20 years of democracy, there has been a strategic
reorientation of South Africa's trade policy. In the early 1990s, the postapartheid
state undertook extensive tariff reform, driven by its multilateral
and regional commitments, as well as unilateral liberalisation
consistent with the austere macro-economic agenda of the time. By the
second decade of democracy, an institutionalised industrial policy designed
to strengthen and diversify South Africa's productive capabilities
had come to determine and shape South Africa's external trade agenda
and negotiations. This more strategic trade policy orientation has required
the preservation and expansion of policy space in bilateral,
regional and multilateral agreements, and more novel approaches to
South-South economic cooperation. There was also a fundamental shift
in thinking on regional integration away from a conventional market-led
model premised on the European Union's experience, to a 'developmental
integration' approach that concurrently prioritises market integration,
infrastructure development and structural economic transformation This article critically reviews how South Africa's trade policy and
negotiating agenda have been recalibrated as instruments of industrial
policy over the two post-apartheid decades. The article concludes with
some observations about the future direction of South Africa's trade
agenda during the third decade of democracy.
