South Africa champions AfCFTA abroad while African migrants face hostility at home. How that contradiction tests policy credibility and market access.
Section
Economics
The Remittance Recession South Africa Could Export
Migrant wages in South Africa fund households across SADC. How displacement could export a remittance recession into regional demand and credit forecasts.
Debt Dragnet: How Treasury Plans to Claw Back R22 Billion Owed to Municipalities
Treasury will deduct R22bn owed to municipalities directly from departments, while municipalities owe suppliers R77bn. Godongwana moves to cut the debt knot.
Chinese zones: A modest base for Africa’s export story
Chinese industrial zones are cast as engines of Africa’s export ambitions, but the recorded jobs and investment are modest, and the zones matter more as a template than a triumph.
Industrial parks: Value-chain infrastructure, or just serviced land
Industrial parks are sold as value-chain infrastructure, but a fenced plot with power and a road is only real estate until firms cluster and a supply chain forms inside it.
Trade fairs as pipelines: turning expo handshakes into SME orders
A four-day expo can announce billions in deals. The harder question is how many of those handshakes survive contact with shipping schedules, payment terms and a small firm’s first export.
Made in Africa, sold to China: why zero tariffs are only the doorway
China has thrown the door open to African goods. Walking through it with finished products, rather than raw ore, is the harder task that no tariff schedule can do for the continent.
South Africa’s Informal Economy Is a Supply Chain, Not a Side Street
Migrant-run spaza shops are nodes in a supply chain of SA wholesalers, landlords, workers and brands. Why to measure second-order losses, not just shopfronts.
Botswana Joins SADC Development Fund and Finance Protocol
President Boko signed to operationalise the SADC Regional Development Fund on 1 April 2026, making Botswana the tenth member. Why the threshold matters.