South Africa: Trade with Italy on the rise

Italy-South Africa trade in 2014 rose to nearly 3.6 billion euro, showing an increase of 3.6% compared with 2013. In particular, recent years have seen considerable growth in our exports to South Africa, with an increase of almost 9% in the period 2011-2014. Some of the most important growth has been in machinery and equipment (+22.5%), electrical and domestic appliances (+76%), food products (+13.6%), computers and electronics and optics products (+30%) and industrially manufactured goods (+57.7%). Overall, more than 25% of our exports to Sub-Saharan Africa are bound for South Africa. Italy went from 5^th to 4^th place in 2013 (compared with 2012) in the EU trade partner rankings (behind Germany, UK and The Netherlands); in terms of exports as well, Italy rose from 5^th to 4^th place, ousting France, and behind the same Germany, UK and The Netherlands.