Global Trade Advisors have released a new report into tariff investigations by the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC). The report contains a large number of striking statistics:
- 93% of current duties have been in place for more than 20 years and have never been reviewed in that period
- it takes 57 months for a tariff application decision in South Africa (compared to a target of 4-6 months), and three times longer than 20 years ago)
- that the increase in tariff decision time largely reflects a dramatic increase in the amount of time decisions await ministerial approval
- only a third of tariff investigations are being completed
- the number of tariff applications have declined to their lowest levels in 21 years
- most of the duties paid are paid on automotive, clothing, textile, and footwear imports
- the automotive industry receives approximately R30 billion per annum in subsidies (roughly equal to their contribution to GDP)
- South African consumers are paying R89 billion in duties.
The report also argues that:
- new unpublished reciprocal agreement requirements are creating state managed enterprises in the private sector
- that tariff processes are increasingly politicised and the private sector is disengaging from the process
- slow and unpredictable trade policy amounts to an anti-investment policy strategy
- the large duties are collected on the most protected sectors
are not materially affecting import volumes.
