S.A.’s glittering trade with the E.E.C.

Press, 18 June 1986, Page 10

S.A.’s glittering trade with the E.E.C.

By

FIONA LENEY,

of

Reuter (through NZPA) Brussels The sparkle of diamonds and the glint of gold colour Western Europe’s trade with South Africa despite a focus by European Community Foreign Ministers on a ban on fruit and other food imports from the republic. Imports of gold and precious stones accounted for 3.5 billion European currency units out of total Community imports from South Africa worth 9.1 billion E.C.U. last year, according to European Commission figures. Fruit, the target of a sanction proposal by the Dutch Foreign Minister, Mr Hans van den Broek, at the Ministerial meeting in Luxemburg, is Pretoria’s least valuable export to the Community — valued at only SUS24S million. Britain, one of the countries most opposed to economic sanctions, is the third-largest importer of South African produce. It bought fruit from the region valued at SUSIIB million in 1985, more than any other Community

country. But Italy, which imports South African products valued at SUS 2.4 billion, tops the table of South Africa’s Community clients. Gold for its lucrative jewellery industry makes up two-thirds of the bill. Belgium and Luxemburg, linked by an economic union, similarly would be relatively unaffected by a ban on fruit imports, which were valued at only SUSIBM out of a total SUS 2.2 billion worth of imports from Pretoria. More than 90 per cent of that is made up by a SUSI.B-billion bill for rough diamonds, destined for Antwerp, the world’s biggest polished diamond centre. France, which with Britain and West Germany is opposed to mandatory economic sanctions as a means of coercing Pretoria to end apartheid, bought coal from South Africa last year valued at SUS3O2 million, almost half of its total import bill of SUSB26 million from the country. The Netherlands, in the forefront of moves to toughen the Community’s

economic measures against Pretoria, spends only SUSI3.6M on fruit out of a comparatively small over-all import bill from South Africa of SUS23BM. Its main South African import last year was coal valued at SUSS7.6M that dwarfed its imports of gems that amounted to $U5434,000. Britain is by far the biggest Community investor in South Africa, but West Germany also has big interests in the region and is the biggest Community exporter to South Africa in trade valued at 5U52.25 billion. A spokesman from the South African delegation to the Community gave a figure of about SUSIB billion for British investment in South Africa, West German interests totalling about SUS 3 billion, and French investment at just under SUSI billion. Exports to the community represented 18 per cent of total South African exports in 1984. In 1985 the country had ranked as the twelfth most important supplier of goods to the Community, the spokesman said.