EXPORT DIVERSIFICATION AND INTRA-INDUSTRY TRADE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Abstract

This paper uses cumulative export experience functions to explore the structural dynamics of South Africa's exports for the period 1990–2003. It finds a large spread of emerging non-traditional accelerating export products across industry clusters of different factor intensities, steadily increasing their proportion in total exports and her main markets. Shift-share and correlation analyses show that increased intra-industry specialisation and trade within import competing product groups explain the structural change in the direction of export diversity. With respect to quality, as measured by relative unit prices of exports and imports in intra-industry trade with the EU and the US, a relative improvement of export quality is found.