Riaan de Lange

https://staging1.creamermedia.com/

Riaan de Lange

This economic and trade-focused column is prepared by Riaan de Lange – riaan@tariffandtrade.co.za. The views expressed in this column are the author's personal views

Incoterms® centenary

17th March 2023 According to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), “Incoterms® is the world’s essential terms of trade for the sale of goods”. Incoterms®, a registered trademark, is the abbreviation for International Commercial terms. Consequently, ‘Incoterms’ cannot legally be used by another entity. The... →

Greylisted

10th March 2023 It is customary to dedicate this column to the Finance Minister’s Budget speech which it is presented, and this year it was delivered on February 22. It thus speaks volumes when the speech is relegated behind the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF’s) ‘greylisting’ of South Africa on February 24,... →

No national crime disaster

3rd March 2023 The headline message of the Third Quarter Crime Statistics, released on February 17, is that more than 83 murders and 138 rapes are recorded daily, making South Africa one of the most violent countries. Oddly, these numbers do not warrant the declaration of a national state of disaster. Could it... →

Unmitigated disaster

24th February 2023 As I pondered the title of this week’s piece, there were many candidates: ‘Electric dreams’, ‘Powerless’, ‘Power grab’, ‘Married to the problem’ and ‘When a disaster is born’. And ‘disaster’ reminded me of a school teacher who was famed for his false praise; when students provided an answer that... →

Misplaced charity

17th February 2023 Charity starts at home, as the old adage goes. If South Africa Tourism (SAT) needs any reminding, we should deal with the needs of those close to us before thinking about helping others. This definition of charity is according to the Collins Dictionary, while the Cambridge English Dictionary... →

Averagely corrupt

10th February 2023 There you have it: South Africa is averagely corrupt. Well, it’s apparently so in comparison with the rest of the world. So, on average, South Africa is seemingly fine. The obvious question is: Just how corrupt is the world? To answer this question, one would need to consider the definition of... →

Birthday unplugged

3rd February 2023 As I sat down to write this piece on January 23, it was 37 days before a hundredth birthday. Want to venture a guess as to whose birthday it would be? A hint: quite ironically, you will need to light a candle – not only in celebration, but as a collective effort, for, according to President Cyril... →

They’ll stand by them

27th January 2023 “Oh, why you look so sad? Tears are in your eyes. Don't be ashamed to cry …'Cause I've seen the dark side too …”, as The Pretenders would let you have in their 1994 Grammy Award winning song, I’ll Stand by You. It was quite fitting as I sat down to write this piece on January 16, ‘the Blue... →

A year of hope

20th January 2023 “No more champagne; And the fireworks are through; Here we are, …; Feeling lost and feeling blue; It's the end of the party; And the morning seems so grey; So, unlike yesterday; Now's the time for us to say; Happy New Year …; Happy New Year; May we all have our hopes, our will to try; If don't we... →

Scrap it – Interrobang

16th December 2022 This year has been one of repeat performances. So, unlike the infamous sitcom catchphrase from Allo 'Allo!, it was never a case of “Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once”. In this, the last column of the year, prepare for a repeat performance, which the Collins Dictionary describes as... →

Customs commercial fraud

9th December 2022 On November 24, the World Customs Organisation (WCO) published its first ‘Global Trendspotter Report on Customs-Related Commercial Fraud’, which was compiled by customs experts and WCO Regional Intelligence Liaison Offices (RILOs) and European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) representatives with... →

eATA Carnet project

2nd December 2022 Did you know that about 190 000 ATA Carnets covering merchandise valued at R449.87-billion are issued by 80 countries or customs territories each year? More importantly, do you know what an ATA Carnet is? The acronym ‘ATA’ is a combination of the initial letters of the French phrase ‘Admission... →

No spring chicken

25th November 2022 The International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (Itac) has published a notice in the Government Gazette about the initiation of a sunset review of the antidumping duties on imports of frozen bone-in portions of fowls of the species Gallus Domesticus originating in or imported... →

Will State shipping line float?

18th November 2022 Whatever floats your boat! That’s what I thought when I saw the predraft South African Shipping Company (Sasco) Bill, 2022, which was published on November 1 “to provide for the establishment of Sasco, to develop and promote efficient international and domestic shipping services provided by... →

Please, Sir

11th November 2022 “I want some more,” requested Oliver Twist in Charles Dickens’ 1837 novel, Parish Boy's Progress. Just how nicely the South African Revenue Service (Sars) is going to ask the South African taxpayer to pay more money remains to be seen. Did you know that, while Twist’s infamous phrase in the... →

Tariff determination process

4th November 2022 The South African Revenue Service (Sars) on October 27 presented what it called “a comprehensive tariff determination webinar” to educate traders and travellers and increase their compliance with customs and excise procedures. The revenue service said the aim of the webinar was to provide clarity... →

Preparing for HS2027

28th October 2022 Well, this is something of a first – two consecutive columns on the Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System (HS). This is quite significant, considering that the next iteration of the HS is due only on January 1, 2027. But then again, in the words of Ferris Bueller: “Life moves pretty... →

HS study participation

21st October 2022 The World Customs Organisation (WCO) announced on October 7 that, just over a month ago, on September 5, it had formally established a small project team for a two-year period to conduct an exploratory study on a possible strategic review of the Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System.... →

Middle-out economics

14th October 2022 While last week’s column was all about levelling up and trickling down, this week’s is all about a glaring omission – the most glaring omission, I would argue. Can I give you a clue? Well, as the old adage goes, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The most neglected constituents in an economy... →

Levelling up & trickling down

7th October 2022 There was a time when we were overrun by a tsunami of acronyms. Now our world is abuzz and aflood with terms whose meanings are rarely, if ever, explained. These terms tend to morph into buzzwords that are quite casually introduced into everyday conversation. Take the two buzzwords: levelling up... →

Cheerio, here I go

30th September 2022 What is the difference between a migrant and an emigrant? Well, a not-so-helpful start would be to state that there is no internationally accepted legal definition of ‘migrant’. That said, a migrant is generally described as a person who has moved from one place to another. There are two... →

World Tariff Profiles 2022

23rd September 2022 If you thought you needed to fork out money for world-class international tariff profiles, you might be in for a pleasant surprise. The World Trade Organisation (WTO), the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) recently released,... →

Metal products trade control

16th September 2022 It is important for me to pay homage to the origin of this column, which came into being when a fairly youthful me approached the Creamers, proposing the initiation of a weekly column about proposed changes in the Southern African Customs Union tariff and trade environment. Then, as now, the... →

Unexplained wealth ‘targeted’

9th September 2022 Isn’t it curious how interrelated the financial news in South Africa has become of late, without attention being drawn to this fact? Take the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), for instance. On August 30, South African Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner Edward Kieswetter issued a joint... →

Root cause of food inflation

2nd September 2022 Days after I had submitted the piece titled ‘Chickenomics’, published on August 19, I had a sinking feeling that it was not quite complete. It was not incomplete as far as chicken meat was concerned, but was incomplete with respect to food inflation. When author and satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys was... →

Citrus fruit dispute

26th August 2022 There is a first time for everything, as the adage goes. On July 27, the South African government initiated its first-ever World Trade Organisation (WTO) request for dispute consultations by challenging the 27-member European Union (EU) on phytosanitary requirements for the importation of South... →

Chickenomics

19th August 2022 Did you know that chickens account for 23-billion of the 30-billion land animals living on farms? If you are doing the math, chickens outnumber humans three to one. On Monday, August 1, the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (Itac) released an inconspicuous Government... →

You lost me at . . .

12th August 2022 Blah, blah, blah. On July 27, President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered a 3 177-word address on South Africa's energy crisis, in which he proposed “implementing additional measures to achieve long-term energy security and end load-shedding for good”. A crisis “is either an event or period that will... →

CPI + 7%

5th August 2022 “I'll have what she’s having” is from the memorable restaurant scene in the 1989 comedy, When Harry Met Sally. Although reminiscent of, it is no laughing matter when reading the column’s headline in the “Media Statement on negotiations between SARS and Organised Labour”, released on May 20. Sars... →

Economic freedom

5th August 2022 If freedom is “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants”, what does economic freedom mean? Evidently ‘freedom’ and ‘economic freedom’ tend to be expressed in four pillars. The late former US President, Franklin D Roosevelt, identified four fundamental freedoms that everyone ought... →

Shades of greylisting

29th July 2022 In case the headline confused you or made you wonder whether ‘shades of grey’ means “the situation does not make it clear what is right and what is wrong”, let me be clear: ‘greylisting’ is bad. In fact, it is dreadful. Truth be told, it’s a new word to me. We are all familiar with ‘blacklisting’... →

Gold to the future

22nd July 2022 Doctor Emmett Brown: “No! It cannot be; I just sent you back to the Future!” Marty McFly: “No, I know; you did send me back to the Future. But I am back – I am back from the Future”. Doctor Emmett Brown: “Great Scott!” I had a McFly moment on July 4, when the governor of the Reserve Bank of... →

Calling on small businesses

15th July 2022 In 2021, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the International Trade Centre (ITC) – established by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the United Nations (UN) through the UN Conference on Trade and Development – and the WTO Informal Working Group on Micro, Small and Medium Sized... →

I owe, I owe – the sequel

8th July 2022 Over the 21 years of writing this column, there has been the odd temptation to simply resubmit an earlier instalment because, in South Africa, the more things change, the more they remain the same. It took immense willpower to resist the latest temptation, and that was when, on June 13, the... →

Customs matters

1st July 2022 It’s not often that a book on customs is published. The last such book of significance that I can recall was published in 2003 by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) it’s Customs: Challenges and Strategies for the Reform of Customs Administrations and made the case for the modernisation and... →

Operation Vulindlela update

24th June 2022 What do you know about Operation Vulindela? The piece published in this column on April 2, 2021, headlined ‘Operation Vulindlela’, might provide some insight, or maybe not. The operation’s most recent ‘honorary’ mention appeared in the National Treasury’s media statement of June 7 about the... →

Fuel price ‘reduction’ extension

17th June 2022 On May 31, the National Treasury and the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy issued a media release announcing the “extension of the temporary reduction in the general fuel levy”. This followed a March 31 media release headlined ‘Short-term relief measures to address fuel price increases’,... →

Trade Facilitation Innovation

10th June 2022 The Trade Facilitation Committee was created on February 22, 2017, when the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) entered into force. The TFA contains provisions for expediting the movement, release and clearance of goods, including goods in transit. It also sets out measures for effective... →

CPI + 7%

3rd June 2022 “I’ll have what she’s having” is from the memorable restaurant scene in the 1989 comedy, When Harry Met Sally. I was reminded of this when reading a May 20 release from the South African Revenue Service (Sars) titled ‘Media statement on negotiations between Sars and organised labour’. As stated... →

Do not overthink it

27th May 2022 The most challenging economics class to teach is the first-year university class, for the students already ‘know’ all there is to know. This gels with what my grandfather used to tell me: when you start doing something new, you tend to be quite opinionated and wise with respect to the required... →

SA TIED UP

20th May 2022 When does one throw in the towel? Some of my fondest childhood memories are of evenings spent with my father at West Ridge Park, watching boxing, which was not really my favourite pastime, but my father’s. I recall many a fight where the losing boxer’s trainer would throw in a towel or a sponge.... →

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