South Africa is trying to open up new markets in Asia and elsewhere for its farm produce that has been hit with punitive US import tariffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The priority is to export more to China, where duty-free access has been secured for five types of fruit, Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen said, without specifying what they were. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia, South Korea, the Philippines, Japan and nations in the Middle East are also being targeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI would sell my products anywhere in the world, to whoever wants them,\u201d Steenhuisen said in an interview on Monday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have goods to sell and our job is to look for customers, and we will work to open protocols wherever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many South African exports to the US, including its citrus, nuts, grapes and wine, have been subjected to 30% duties since 7 August. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The levies, the highest imposed on goods from any sub-Saharan African nation, are part of President Donald Trump\u2019s bid to reshape America\u2019s relationship with its trading partners. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some South African producers will be able to weather the new charges, according to Steenhuisen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are also some who say that they can still compete with a 30% tariff,\u201d because the weak rand-dollar exchange rate gives them an advantage, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For instance, avocado producers \u201care happy to compete on the 30% basis as long as the market remains open in the US,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The minister is trying to resolve a protracted dispute between South Africa\u2019s citrus industry and the European Union over health protocols, and hopes to negotiate a bilateral accord that will enable them to be circumvented. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The citrus industry has previously criticized the measures, complaining that they cost the sector about R3.7 billion each season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe low-hanging fruit for us is to get this black spot issue resolved in Europe,\u201d Steenhuisen said. \u201cWe could then redirect a lot of the citrus in there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa is trying to open up new markets in Asia and elsewhere for its farm produce that has been hit with punitive US import tariffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":808107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[23349],"class_list":["post-834636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-us-tariff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=834636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":834638,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834636\/revisions\/834638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=834636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=834636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=834636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}