Acta Universitatis Danubius. Œconomica, Vol 14, No 1 (2018)

Abstract

The rapid growth of China’s economy has increased China’s demand for imports required to meet the increased demand for raw materials in its industries. In 2006, China became the largest export destination for South Africa. This paper seeks to examine the relationship between China’s economic growth and South Africa’s exports to China. The paper aims to find out whether there is any significant relationship between China’s economic growth and South Africa’s exports to China. Using an import demand function for China, we employ an ARDL framework to analyze the research problem based on quarterly data covering the period 1992 to 2015. We find no evidence that there is a significant relationship between China’s economic growth and South Africa’s exports to China. However, the results do show that there is a positive long-run relationship between South Africa’s exports to China and the price of South Africa’s exports. The positive coefficient of South Africa’s export prices indicates lack of price sensitivity in terms of South Africa’s exports to China. Based on the results, we recommend that South Africa should find ways to enable its exports sector to benefit more from the high economic growth in China. Among other ways, this could be achieved through negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA) between South Africa and China.