South Africa is not well integrated into global value chains compared with G20 emerging markets. The chart below shows that the IMF estimates that South Africa’s input linkages are generally higher than the G20 EM average (i.e. South Africa supplies inputs to other economies), while South Africa’s demand side linkages (i.e. output linkages) are much lower across all industries. Low relative output linkages limits the extent to which South African firms benefit from faster growth in major emerging markets.
