South Africa is a member of the G20 group of countries. Trade Negotiations 3. What are the authorities responsible for negotiating trade agreements? How long does it usually take to conclude a trade deal with your country? The main authorities responsible for negotiating trade agreements are the:. Department of Trade, Industry and Competition. Department of International Relations and Cooperation. Trade negotiations take a long time. Supply of Services 4. Is your jurisdiction a party to international agreements on cross-border trade in services?

South Africa is a party to international agreements on cross-border trade in services, including the:. South Africa is not participating in the negotiations of the TiSA. What domestic legislation and international rules apply to the supply of financial services and legal services in your jurisdiction?

What are the main requirements that service providers must comply with? Financial Services Regulatory Framework. Legislation governing the cross-border supply of financial services includes the following:. Immigration Act 13 of FATF sets standards and promotes effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and related threats to the international financial system.

The most recent amendment to the FICA involves dealings with politically exposed, prominent or influential people and their families and close associates, and requires financial institutions to:. Monitor the activities of these persons. Obtain senior management approval to establish business relationships with these persons. Establish the source of funds for transactions involving these persons. Main Requirements. South Africa's Immigration Act applies strict general work visa requirements.

General work visas are issued to foreign nationals, if it can be shown that South African citizens and permanent residents with the relevant qualifications or skills and experience are not available for a particular employment position.

General work visas are valid for the duration of the employment contract or a period up to five years. For further information, see the Department for Home Affairs website. Under the Companies Act, a foreign company that conducts, or intends to conduct, business in South Africa must register as an "external company" with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission. A foreign or external company means a company incorporated outside South Africa.

The Banks Act 94 of Banks Act regulates the authorisation and registration procedure to establish a bank in South Africa. Chapter III lays out the procedure to be followed. The Prudential Authority , within the South African Reserve Bank, is responsible for supervising the operation of banks and ensuring compliance by banks with the Banks Act.

To conduct the business of a bank, an entity must be a public company registered as a bank under the Banks Act. To register as a bank, an entity must both:. Apply to the Prudential Authority for authorisation to establish a bank.

Banks are subject to numerous reporting requirements in terms of the Banks Act and the Financial Sector regulation Act 9 of Under the Pension Funds Act, all beneficiary pension funds established after must be registered.

This does not apply if the head office of the association carrying on the pension fund business, or the head office of all employers that are parties to the fund, is outside South Africa exempt business and the following requirements are met:.

The Registrar of Pension Funds Registrar is satisfied that the fund rules applicable to members resident in South Africa are no less favourable than those applicable to members resident outside South Africa, considering the differences in conditions of service.

The Registrar is satisfied that adequate arrangements exist to ensure the financial soundness of the fund. The fund provides such security as the Registrar may require for the payment of benefits to members resident in South Africa who are South African citizens, or the fund otherwise satisfies the Registrar that it will be able to pay such benefits. The Registrar can require any person carrying on an exempt business to submit returns and information relating to the business.

Legal Services Regulatory Framework. The regulation of the South African legal services sector is governed in terms of the Legal Practice Act 28 of The Legal Practice Act sets out the requirements to practise as a legal practitioner an attorney or advocate in South Africa.

Further, a person must be all of the following:. Duly qualified. A South African citizen or permanent resident. Undergone all the practical vocational training requirements as a candidate legal practitioner prescribed by the minister, including community service and a legal practice management course for candidate legal practitioners. Are there restrictions on market access for specific services sectors? The provision of legal services is subject to certain restrictions see Question 5, Legal Services.

The accounting and auditing professions are also regulated. A person must be resident in South Africa to acquire a practising licence. The energy sector is dominated by Eskom, South Africa's electricity public utility. However, independent power producers are making efforts to increase their share in this market.

Imports Customs Authority. What is the authority responsible for enforcing customs laws and regulations? The Customs and Excise Act also imposes criminal sanctions in the form of a fine, imprisonment, or both. It also co-operates with other bodies involved in import and export controls for certain categories of products.

Can customs decisions and import restrictions be challenged? Customs decisions and import restrictions can be challenged. Judicial review of administrative decisions and decisions involving the exercise of public power is well-established in South Africa.

Under the PAJA, a party wishing to have an administrative decision set aside must bring judicial review proceedings within days from the date on which it was informed, or became aware, of the decision and the reasons for it.

A party can, within 90 days after the date on which it became aware of an administrative decision, request the decision-maker to provide written reasons for their decision. The Customs and Excise Act has an appeal mechanism as an alternative to judicial review. A decision of a customs officer can be appealed to the relevant appeal committee.

A party that is not satisfied with a decision of an appeal committee can apply for alternative dispute resolution ADR to the relevant appeal committee. The committee will add its comments to the application and forward it to the ADR Unit. Further information on the appeals process is available on the SARS website. Other regulatory bodies, such as the South African Council for the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, do not have an internal appeal mechanism but consider voluntary disclosures and representations.

Import Duties, Tariffs and Rates. Where can information be found about import tariffs and other customs charges? Import tariffs are set out in the Schedules to the Customs and Excise Act. Equity ownership and management control may present greater challenges. Also see Selling to the Government below.

Localization The South African Government is continuously changing the mandatory industrial localization requirement for foreign suppliers that often view this as a cost and risk factor for doing business in South Africa.

Ownership The South African Government has continued to tighten labor and foreign ownership laws and mandated industrial localization. Sectors of specific concern include the extractive industries, security services, and agriculture. Labor Due to the poor state of the public education system, skilled labor can be difficult to find in many technical and professional segments despite steadily increasing unemployment. While the pre-Covid nominal unemployment rate is above 29 percent, including those who have given up looking for a job raises it to 37 percent.

Droughts saw a year record drought in the central and northeastern part of the country come to an end, but water scarcity will remain a major concern for agriculture, power generation, and human consumption. These products would be showcased at trade fairs and exhibitions, with China covering the cost for one year, and the second year covered by SA.

There had been an exponential demand for South African wines from China, but the focus was on more finished manufactured products, like automotive components. SA also looked to attract more investments from China, and the President himself had attended the opening of the first automotive heavy truck assembly plant in Coega, which was a R million investment from China. The country was still suffering from the Uruguay Round, and he asked if SA was not running ahead of itself by opening the economy as much as it had.

According to Mr Ha-Joon Chang, a world renowned economist, and an expert in derivatives, Mr Satyajit Das, developed countries protected their economies when they started, because they strengthened their economies from within before opening up. Instead of helping Lesotho, South Africa was victimising Lesotho through customs and immigration rules. Lesotho was the weakest country within SACU and should be helped up to the standard required to build a strong economic region.

Dr Vickers said the Uruguay Round was an unfortunate legacy from the past, but it was important that fellow WTO members recognised that there was an injustice.

With the liberalisation commitments that would or would not be taken in the Doha Round, there was recognition that SACU was a special case and would need extra attention, extra flexibility and more policy space to compensate.

This programme was very much informed by the work of Ha-Joon Chang, and he was one of the guest presenters. South Africa was a developing country that had been inserted into a global economy to participate -- but also to contest and to resist.

Developed countries were in crisis because growth was static or low, and needed structural adjustment to prosper. Emerging economies were the new sources of global trade and investment, and Africa was the second fastest growing continent in the world, just behind Asia.

Developed countries were looking for access to Africa through EPAs. There were approximately one billion people in Africa with a rapidly growing middle class that represented a lot of purchasing power for their goods and services.

At the same time, developed countries kept Africa in check through a range of policy instruments. Through the developmental integration approach, focus would be on the developmental challenges of countries such as Lesotho. Lesotho was probably the best country with which to build a regional value chain.

South Africa had lobbied very hard for Philips to come and establish a factory that made compact fluorescent light bulbs in Lesotho. There was a strong emphasis on the cross-border work in Lesotho and hopefully, when the South African Development Partnership Agency came to life, more development cooperation would be provided to other countries.

Mr Suka said there were a lot of untapped resources in the Eastern Cape, especially coal in the eastern part of the Eastern Cape, and resources along the coastline. There had been a shift in the goal posts, where SA had been given the status of representing other African countries in the G20, and the international companies were protecting their interests at the expense of developing countries. From a constituency base, he asked what tangible issues could be reported to the communities.

The presentation was comprehensive and he asked if this message from the DTI -- and other similar information packages -- could not be made available through electronic media not necessarily "pay television" , but a slot on SABC to advance the cause and to take the country along on what was happening or what was planned. South Africa was focused on its urban basis, while it was its rural population that needed the most help. Dr Vickers said it was too simplistic to say that South Africa was on a liberalisation trajectory.

Through the trade policy review process, it had been decided that trade policy had to be informed by and supported industrial development. All legitimate trade policy instruments and policy space, acquired as a member of the WTO, needed to be used to support local industry. The Minister told the developed country partners in the G20 that their monetary and fiscal policies had a far more protectionist and distorted impact on our economies via the exchange rate and other variables, but this was never construed as protectionism.

The country was part of a global trade environment and the policy needed to be exercised within that context. No mention had been made of Zimbabwe and this should be reviewed in terms of the regional integrated approach.

Many workers in South Africa were from neighbouring countries, because taxes from Mozambican mine workers in South African mines were levied in Mozambique. Very often with imported goods, the goods were under declared, undercutting the manufacturer in South Africa, or elsewhere on the continent. There were some WTO members that were not very amenable to the trade policies of the developing world, and this highlighted some of the problems in the Doha Round of negotiations.