Factory Southern Africa?

Once concentrated among a few large
economies, global flows of goods, services, and capital now
reach an ever-larger number of countries worldwide. Global
trade in goods and in services both increased 10 times
between 1980 and 2011, while foreign direct investment (FDI)
flows increased almost 30-fold. A value chain is global when
some of these stages are carried out in more than one
country, most notably when discrete tasks within a
production process are fragmented and dispersed across a
number of countries. Southern African Customs Union (SACU) -
region global value chains (GVCs) are both a new reality and
significant opportunity for expanding non-commodity exports
to support growth, diversification, and job creation in the
region. The task-based nature of GVCs creates opportunities
for developing countries to establish very quickly a
position in global trade within a sector in which they may
have had no previous experience. For South Africa, GVCs are
seen as a route to higher manufacturing exports and greater
value addition. For other SACU countries, GVCs are seen as a
route to diversification and global integration, and to
leverage the possibility of greater investment from South
Africa itself. The main objectives of the study are as
follows: (i) to understand trends of GVC participation and
competitiveness of South Africa and the wider SACU region,
the outcomes from this participation (exports, jobs, and
productivity), and the factors that determine
competitiveness; (ii) to map the extent of value chain
integration across the region and identify barriers to
deeper integration; and (iii) to identify policies and
actions that will be required to develop a globally
competitive, high value-adding factory Southern Africa.