RELATIVE COMPETITIVENESS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN OILSEED INDUSTRY

An overview of the oilseed industry locally and globally is provided, followed by measurements of the comparative and competitive advantages of the South African and Argentine oilseed industries. Three indexes are used to calculate the comparative and competitive advantages namely the Net Export Index (NXI), the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) and the Relative Revealed Comparative Trade Advantage (RTA) index. According to the results South African groundnuts and sunflower seed have a competitive advantage in their primary form. Oilseeds to which value has been added have, in most cases, a competitive disadvantage, exactly the opposite to Argentina‘s oilseed products. The finding that South Africa is only competitive in the primary oilseed market, lead to the secondary oilseed industry. In the analysis it was found that the South African oilseed industry is price driven. Since price plays a large role in the competitiveness of the industry, imports of cheaper bottled refined oils are considered to pose a major threat.