South African Trade Surplus Falls Sharply in March

South Africa’s trade surplus fell sharply to 940.8 mln rand in March after rising to 1.62 billion in February, Customs and Excise figures show.

In February last year the surplus stood at 752.8 mln rand.

Exports fell to 3.24 mln rand in March from 3.36 billion in February while imports rose to 2.30 billion rand from 1.74 billion.

This brought total exports for the first quarter of this year to 9.92 billion rand and imports to 6.45 billion rand for a surplus of 3.47 billion versus 2.47 billion rand in the same in 1986 period.