By Stavros Nicolaou
At a time when global trade is fragmenting and traditional partnerships are under strain, China’s newly proposed trade framework with Africa offers something increasingly rare: certainty, scale, and long-term intent.
For South Africa, the question is: How do we respond? In early February this year, the South African Trade Minister Parks Tau and his counterpart from the People’s Republic of China, Minister Wang Wentao, signed the Framework Agreement on Economic Partnership for Shared Prosperity in Beijing. The agreement covers cooperation in the following areas: trade, investment, new energy and multi-lateral relations.
Focusing on Trade and Investment Cooperation
The framework laid the groundwork for an agreement that would provide duty-free access to South African exported products into China and will boost Chinese investment into South Africa. The opportunity is significant.
As Minister Tau commented on the occasion, “China-South Africa relations continue to deepen, new opportunities emerge for South African businesses seeking to enter the Chinese market, particularly in sectors such as mining, agriculture, renewable energy and technology.” This is underpinned by ensuring consistency with the WTO’s principles and the development objectives of both countries, with a view to providing a stable and predictable environment for economic cooperation that supports both countries’ industrial development outcomes.
In the view of the South African BRICS Business Council, this agreement provides preferential market access for a broader range of African goods into China and opens the door for South African manufacturers, agro-processors, and technology firms to scale exports into one of the world’s largest consumer markets. The opportunity does not automatically translate into benefit. South Africa’s trade balance with China has historically been skewed towards raw material exports and finished goods imports. Without deliberate intervention, this pattern risks deepening.
South Africa exported about $13.5 billion worth of goods to China in 2025, making China its largest single export destination. More than two-thirds of those goods are concentrated in ores, metals, and other resource-based products, with iron ore alone accounting for the overwhelming share.
Meanwhile South Africa imported about $25 billion in Chinese goods, primarily machinery, electronics, vehicles, and manufactured products. The asymmetry is clear. South Africa supplies inputs; China supplies finished goods. The real prize for South Africa lies in changing this trajectory, moving up the value chain, expanding beneficiation, and positioning South Africa as a hub for regional manufacturing linked into Chinese and broader BRICS supply chains.
What is required from Government and Private Sector
This requires a coordinated national effort. Government must move decisively to align industrial policy with the sectors most likely to benefit from the framework, while accelerating reforms that improve the ease and cost of doing business. Maintenance of reliable energy supply, improving ports and rail efficiency, and regulatory certainty are key enablers for the country to ensure optimum participation in this agreement.
Equally, the private sector must come to the party. South African firms need to actively pursue partnerships with Chinese counterparts, not only as exporters, but as co-investors and collaborators in technology transfer, skills development, and market expansion. The intentional use of market intelligence with South Africa’s revealed comparative advantages (others refer to this as Decision-Supported Model products to be exported in line with our industrial policy) is critical to the success of the opportunity. Put differently, institutions like the BRICS Business Council, with government support, must continue to develop reports with the product level intelligence needed to access Chinese distribution channels, comply with certification requirements, and build sustainable after-sales support systems.
There is also a broader continental dimension. As the African Continental Free Trade Area gains traction, South Africa sits at a strategic intersection. It is not only one of China’s largest trading partners in Africa; it is also one of the continent’s most industrialised economies, with established capabilities in automotive manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, agro-processing, and increasingly, green mineral beneficiation. These are not hypothetical sectors. They are existing platforms that can be scaled with the right conditions in place.
And China, for its part, is no longer simply the factory of the world. It is a leader in renewable energy, digital infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing. These are industries that South Africa urgently needs to expand. Increasingly, Chinese firms are not just exporting to Africa; they are investing, localising production, and seeking partnerships that extend beyond trade into production ecosystems.
SA pathway
The agreements promise market access; institutions facilitate dialogue. What is needed is execution, bankable projects, faster regulatory approvals, harmonised standards, targeted support for small and medium-sized enterprises trying to enter Chinese value chains, and access to blended finance that can de-risk investment and accelerate delivery. These are important interventions, which are the mechanics of shifting from extraction to production.
South Africa must use the framework with China to practically build domestic industrial capacity at scale. This requires a shift in mindset as much as in policy.
Improving current trade volumes patterns, however impressive, are no longer the measure of success if they are not beneficiation driven. The next phase of South Africa–China relations will not be defined by how much the two countries trade, but by what we can build together.
-Dr Stavros Nicolaou is a Council Member of the South African Chapter of the BRICS Business Council
