External Trade and the Balance of Payments, 1933–61

South Africa’s foreign trade changed both quantitatively and qualitatively in this period. The volume grew as a result of greater gold production, increased industrial production and the emergence of large agricultural exports. The higher values were aided by three devaluations of the South African pound — in 1933, in 1945 and in 1949 — by the latter date, in dollar terms, the South African pound was worth only half of what it had been in 1932. At the same time the product base was widening. So too was the geographical extent of the country’s trade. By 1961 South Africa was much less closely tied to the economy of the United Kingdom. Continental Europe had increased in importance both as a source of imports and as a market. Japan, too, was becoming steadily more important, providing the Union with cheap manufactured goods and taking an increasing quantity of raw materials. The United States had moved into second place behind Britain. Before the war America had been second to Britain as a supplier of goods to South Africa, but she had not been a major market, taking in 1938 under one per cent of the Union’s exports, compared with Britain’s 74.5 per cent. By 1961 the British share had dropped to 26.2 per cent and the American share had risen to 8.1 per cent. South Africa’s economy remained heavily Eurocentric and heavily geared to the export of primary products and the import of manufactured goods. At no time, however, did the country experience export-led growth. Exports were a consequence of growth.