Trade and export markets should be diversified into many regional and global supply-and-value chains
13 February 2025 - 16:00
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While understandable, being “very worried” about SA’s continued participation in the African Growth & Opportunity Act (Agoa) should not be where Business Unity SA and other companies’ risk mitigation and investment plans and strategies end (“Trump’s executive order heightens anxiety about SA exports to US”, February 10).
While not to dismiss Agoa’s economic, trade and investment-signal importance, SA’s trade and export markets should be developed to a level where they are diversified, multilayered and integrated in as many regional and global supply-and-value chains as possible.
In this era of increased global trade and investment volatility, business operations and investment decisions based on the spur of the moment, and subject to quickly changing global winds and generally higher risk premiums, simply will not serve as a sound strategy.
Rather, obtaining data from reliable sources and engaging with dispassionate analysis will serve a company’s long-term viability. Acknowledging increased uncertainty and anxiety is one thing; hoping such emotions and feelings will diminish cannot be counted upon as a business strategy. Those emotions should spur sound scenario planning and long-term trends analysis.
Serious diplomatic work is needed to save the country’s Agoa access. But apart from that work companies and the government should, if possible and within the resources available to them, plan for the scenario in which SA will not form part of a new Agoa — assuming the Agoa programme itself is reinstated after September.
Chris Hattingh Centre For Risk Analysis
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
LETTER: Worrying about Agoa not a plan
Trade and export markets should be diversified into many regional and global supply-and-value chains
While understandable, being “very worried” about SA’s continued participation in the African Growth & Opportunity Act (Agoa) should not be where Business Unity SA and other companies’ risk mitigation and investment plans and strategies end (“Trump’s executive order heightens anxiety about SA exports to US”, February 10).
While not to dismiss Agoa’s economic, trade and investment-signal importance, SA’s trade and export markets should be developed to a level where they are diversified, multilayered and integrated in as many regional and global supply-and-value chains as possible.
In this era of increased global trade and investment volatility, business operations and investment decisions based on the spur of the moment, and subject to quickly changing global winds and generally higher risk premiums, simply will not serve as a sound strategy.
Rather, obtaining data from reliable sources and engaging with dispassionate analysis will serve a company’s long-term viability. Acknowledging increased uncertainty and anxiety is one thing; hoping such emotions and feelings will diminish cannot be counted upon as a business strategy. Those emotions should spur sound scenario planning and long-term trends analysis.
Serious diplomatic work is needed to save the country’s Agoa access. But apart from that work companies and the government should, if possible and within the resources available to them, plan for the scenario in which SA will not form part of a new Agoa — assuming the Agoa programme itself is reinstated after September.
Chris Hattingh
Centre For Risk Analysis
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
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