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This study examines the effects of global tariff adjustments on the susceptibility of South African manufacturing exports from 2020 to 2025. The escalation of protectionism and uncertainty in trade policy has progressively impacted export performance in emerging manufacturing economies. This study seeks to evaluate the impact of tariff changes on export volume, sector composition, and firm-level adaptation techniques in South Africa's manufacturing sector.A quantitative methodology was utilised, employing secondary data from international trade and macroeconomic databases, encompassing sector-specific export statistics, tariff exposure metrics, exchange rate controls, and global demand variables. Descriptive statistical analysis and multivariate regression modelling were employed to investigate the correlation between tariff exposure and export performance in principal industrial sectors. The results indicate that tariff adjustments had a statistically significant adverse effect on the growth of industrial exports. A one-percent increase in tariff exposure correlated with an estimated 0.5–0.6 percent decline in export growth within tariff-sensitive sectors. The automotive and textile industries displayed the greatest susceptibility, whereas processed manufacturing exports showed enhanced resilience, possibly attributable to regional market diversification. company-level adaptation options, including regional market growth and investments in automation, alleviated export losses but demonstrated inconsistent success across different sectors and company sizes. This study enhances the trade resilience literature by offering empirical evidence that connects global tariff changes to sector-specific export susceptibility in a middle-income manufacturing economy. The results highlight the significance of industry enhancement, regional trade integration, and export diversification in reducing vulnerability to external trade disturbances. The findings provide significant insights for industrial and trade policies intended to improve South Africa's long-term manufacturing export competitiveness in the context of persistent global trade volatility.

The study aims to examine the key drivers and financing mechanisms of infrastructure development in Africa and their impact on trade facilitation and regional economic integration. It focuses on understanding the political, economic, and institutional factors shaping sustainable infrastructure growth and trade expansion across the continent. The African continent engages in relatively limited intra-continental trade, with intra-African trade consistently averaging between 12% and 15%. At a broader level, trade growth is widely regarded as a key driver of economic development, employment generation, and poverty reduction. However, the persistent low levels of trade among African countries coupled with high unemployment and widespread poverty have sparked discussions around the urgent need to strengthen both intra-regional and continental trade. In pursuit of regional integration, various regional economic communities were established, including the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Despite these efforts, concerns persist regarding weak economic infrastructure across several regions of the continent, including within the SADC bloc. Inadequate infrastructure has been identified as a major impediment to enhancing intra-African trade. Against this backdrop, the present study aims to empirically examine the relationship between economic infrastructure and intra-regional trade within the SADC region. The analysis employs panel data covering all 15 SADC member states, utilizing datasets from the SADC Secretariat and the World Bank. Applying the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation technique, the findings indicate a positive and statistically significant relationship between infrastructure development and intra-SADC exports.

This paper analyses the factors influencing South Africa's net trade in communications, computer, and technology-related commodities with a linear regression econometric methodology from 2015 to 2024. Utilising Structuralist Trade Theory, Endogenous Growth Theory, and Digital Trade Theory, the study assesses the impact of high-technology exports and ICT-related service trade on the nation's net trade in goods within the Balance of Payments framework. The model utilises annual time-series data, integrating high-technology exports quantified as a proportion of manufactured exports and in absolute monetary terms, in conjunction with communications and computer service imports and exports. The empirical findings indicate that increases in the absolute value of high-technology exports and ICT service exports positively influence net trade performance, whereas ICT service imports have a detrimental effect. The decreasing proportion of high-technology exports in manufacturing indicates ongoing fundamental deficiencies in industrial advancement. The findings suggest that South Africa's trade sustainability relies on enhancing innovation-driven exports and diminishing dependence on imported digital services. The research offers pertinent insights for export diversification, digital industrial advancement, and sustained trade competitiveness in emerging economies.

Cross-border trade within the Economic Community of West African States remains fundamental to regional food distribution, small-scale commerce, and household livelihoods. Yet traders continue to confront persistent non-tariff barriers, administrative delays, and governance weaknesses that raise the cost of moving goods across borders. This paper investigates how informal governance, corruption pressures, and institutional trust shape trade frictions, drawing on UN Comtrade bilateral flows, the Africa Trade Observatory price data, and Afrobarometer perceptions of institutional performance. Using price-gap estimation and a structural gravity framework, the analysis measures how governance quality influences trade costs and distortions in reported bilateral flows. The findings reveal consistent price gaps between official and actual market values for cereals, livestock, and processed foods, suggesting hidden costs linked to bribe payments and informal checkpoint controls. Gravity results indicate that countries with weak institutional trust experience significantly lower formal trade reporting but higher estimated informal flows. These results align with evidence from Afreximbank, ECDPM, FAO, and the African Development Bank on the persistence of informal corridors as adaptive responses to border inefficiencies. The paper concludes with recommendations for coordinated reforms on transparency, digital border systems, and joint border posts to reduce hidden costs and improve regional integration.

Intra-SADC trade has not met the target that was set by the African Continental Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) of achieving 22% by the year 2022 due to a myriad of various trade-related challenges. This present study aims to compare the results of using a Poisson Maximum Likelihood Estimator (PPML) with Random Effects (RE), Fixed Effects (FE), and an Ordinary Least Squares (POLS) model on a balanced panel of select eight Southern African Development Community (SADC) members that trade with South Africa over the period 2010-2022. The paper empirically examines how South Africa’s overlapping Regional Economic Community (REC) membership affects bilateral trade. Also, the examination of how the impact of distance between South Africa and its trading partners impacts bilateral trade. The study findings are that PPML provides more robust results than other estimation techniques in estimating the gravity model for a balanced micro panel. From the PPML results, distance has a significant negative impact at a 5% level on bilateral exports from South Africa which implies that SADC countries that are relatively far in terms of distance from South Africa and landlocked tend to experience a relative fall in exports from South Africa.  However, multiple REC membership has a positive and significant impact of 1% level of significance on bilateral trade contrary to the negative relationship that was expected. The study recommends the speedy conclusion of outstanding AfCFTA issues for member states to effectively benefit from the economies that economic geography presents.

This study scrutinises drivers of trade performance in the SADC region amid the full implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).  Where the short and long-run impact, through the Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) and forecasts through IRF of external debt, debt service cost, GDP per capita, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and Terms of Trade (TOT) on the trade balance is interrogated. In the long run, external debt, debt service costs, and GDP per capita negatively influenced the trade balance. TOT was found to be an insignificant predictor. This implies that these variables were among the significant drivers of trade balance while the impact of terms of trade is negligible in the region. FDI positively impacts regional trade balance, which informs us that it acts as a stimulus for trade in the area. Short-run results revealed that external debt and GDP per capita affected trade balance positively, while debt service costs, FDI and TOT were found to have a negative impact. IRF results showed that shocks from external debt and per capita GDP pose a positive instant impact, while shocks from FDI and TOT were proven to worsen the trade balance in the region. The region needs an FDI stimulus.  

This study used secondary data from World Development Indicators to examine the implication of the Russia-Ukraine war on Trade relations and Foreign Direct Investment flows into other parts of the world. Data from 85 countries between 2012 and 2021 were analyzed using the generalized method of moments (GMM) technique. Findings revealed that the coefficients of export goods, international trade represented by external trade, food exports and fuel exports had positive and significant results from both panels and all the sub-regions, except for Europe, which revealed a mixed result. Conversely, results from food imports, military expenditure, fuel imports and fossil energy consumption revealed negative but significant results, except food imports in Europe showed an insignificant result. Conclusively, the findings of this study revealed that the current war has increased military expenditure, which has caused a significant setback to FDI and trade relations. This has undermined both bilateral and multilateral trade relations and cut off supply chains, markets, and value chains that have long existed before the crisis amongst countries across the globe. Therefore, world leaders should do everything possible to restore peace between these two countries because it will do the world better than their selfish desires. In addition, if the war degenerates more than this, it would not only be injurious to the global market, trade routes, economy and FDI but can lead the world to another world war. Conclusively, this study will help world countries, governments, leaders, policymakers, investors, and companies in various decision-making endeavors, including war-related decisions. World leaders with management crisis skills who can unite nations should help mediate the conflict between Russia and Ukraine to restore peace. However, further studies are still required on this ongoing war for scholarly guidance as there are still limited empirical studies in the world literature regarding this crisis.