Riaan de Lange

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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

In the mirrel, Cyril

11th June 2021 When last did you think about Irvin & Johnson’s Steakhouse Melts? The challenge with ageing, having grown up long before the Internet and Google, is that my memory is just as fragile as the Internet’s and Google’s when thinking back too far. Some days a memory, a partial memory, is triggered, but... →

Trade and competition policy

4th June 2021 Over the course of two days in May, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) released two policy statements. Now, a policy is “a course or principle of action adopted or proposed by a government”, while a statement is “a definite or clear expression in writing”. So, what... →

Message in a bottle

28th May 2021 There was a time, not so long ago, when people would send messages in bottles, even when in great distress. This is now frowned upon, since bottles constitute waste or litter that can harm the environment and marine life. Environmentalists now favour biodegradable drift cards and wooden blocks.... →

A digital levy

21st May 2021 Ever been so bored that you took to contemplating the difference between a duty, a tax or a levy? You might also have pondered whether a tax is a duty that governments levy. Well, “therein lies the tale", as they would say in William Shakespeare’s day – or, as Shakespeare had it said in Romeo and... →

New trade barriers database

14th May 2021 Did you know that trade policy barriers such as tariffs and other regulations account for at least 14% of total trade costs? Would you be interested in gaining a sense of the degree of restrictiveness of these measures, measuring how trade-policy barriers compare with other trade costs, and... →

When you hear the signal

7th May 2021 It would cost you 47.5c. This begs the question: When last did you phone 1026? This should not be confused with 1023, the directory enquiries number you would dial when looking for a telephone number. In case you were wondering, both numbers are still in operation. The 1026 number is, in a way,... →

Gagarin’s poyekhali moment

30th April 2021 Sixty years ago – on April 12, 1961 – Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly into space in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ (USSR’s) Vostok spacecraft, in a flight lasting 108 minutes, circling Earth for a little more than one orbit. I deliberately said ‘person’, but for those... →

SA’s recyclate ‘national flower’

23rd April 2021 Since 1976, the King Protea has been this country’s national flower and also appears on the national coat of arms. Previously, it was the humble Suikerbossie. The King Protea was chosen because it symbolises South Africa's beauty and represents the “flowering of our potential as a nation in... →

Chewing and bubble gum tax

16th April 2021 ‘Pigovian tax’, ‘externalities’, ‘negative externalities’, ‘elasticity of demand’, ‘awful self-inflicted impetigo’, ‘limitations’, ‘regulations’, ‘ban on the product’, ‘sugar tax’, ’drug’, and ‘food’. All these are the keywords on our brief journey to gain insight into chewing gum tax and bubble... →

Creative destruction

9th April 2021 Nearly every episode of the 1966 classic television series, Mission Impossible – yes, it was on television before it became a movie franchise – started with the now iconic lines, “Your mission, Jim, should you decide to accept it” and “This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck,... →

Operation Vulindlela

2nd April 2021 When, on March 15, I saw a piece on the National Treasury’s website that was titled ‘Operation Vulindlela’ and marked ‘Latest News’, my gut feeling was that it was about a covert operation. In both Xhosa and Zulu, vulindlela means ‘make way’, and in the context of a Brenda Fassie song, it means:... →

Excise duties and the Laffer curve

26th March 2021 Whoever said “what goes up must come down” never visited South Africa nor heard of excise duties nor understood their application in South Africa and the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) region. These words were, in fact, uttered by Sir Isaac Newton, widely recognised as one of the most... →

Fairtrade South Africa

19th March 2021 When last, while shopping, did you pause to consider the packaging of the product you had selected? Are you one of those shoppers who turn the product around to contemplate the nutritional information? Does the information pertaining to fats or carbohydrates mean anything to you? Or does the... →

Whoa, livin’ on a prayer

12th March 2021 Just under two weeks after the State of the Nation Address (SoNA), Finance Minister Tito Mboweni tabled the 2021/22 National Budget in the National Assembly – on February 24. At nearly half the length – 3 819 words – of the SoNA, it would have taken someone reading at the average adult reading... →

The rand’s Valentine’s Day

5th March 2021 On February 14, the South African rand celebrated its sixtieth anniversary, having been introduced following the adoption of the recommendations of the Decimal Coinage Commission in 1958 to replace the British-styled pounds, shillings and pence with rands and cents. The currency code for the... →

State of the Nation Address

26th February 2021 Too often, we read without comprehension. Let’s take the headline of this piece and break it down. A ‘state’ is a condition someone or something is in at a specific time, a ‘nation’ is a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture or language who inhabit a particular country... →

Reflections on Brexit

19th February 2021 On July 11, 2016, then Conservative Party leader and future UK Prime Minister Theresa Mary said in one of her speeches: “Brexit means Brexit, and we’re going to make a success of it.” Brexit is a portmanteau of ‘British’ and ‘exit’ and refers to the UK’s referendum decision to leave the European... →

Nudiustertian

12th February 2021 It is a word that I have always wanted to use as the headline of this column. It is a word that, as I type, is glowing in red; not even the spellchecker recogniseS it. It simply means relating to the day before yesterday. Two days before I wrote this piece, on January 27, the International... →

Are we HS 2022 ready?

5th February 2021 Without wanting to sound too dramatic, it is not, apologies to James Carville, “the economy, stupid”, but rather “international trade, stupid”. As the French economist Claude-Frédéric Bastiat once remarked, “if goods don’t cross borders, armies will”. Which begs the question: Are you prepared for... →

SA’s economic policy

29th January 2021 Do you consider South Africa’s economic policy to be a puzzle or a mystery? Should you resort to your favourite search engine and search for ‘South Africa’s economic policy’, the eighth result would point you to a puzzle – Dan Rodrick’s 2008 article, ‘Understanding South Africa’s economic... →

Reflections on the AfCFTA

22nd January 2021 January 1 saw the introduction of a fifth preferential rates of ordinary customs duty column in Schedule No 1, Part 1, of the South African Customs and Excise Act, 1964. It adds to the European Union, the European Free Trade Association, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and... →

2020 in hindsight

15th January 2021 The old adage that hindsight is 20/20 holds that looking back at a situation or event provides a clearer understanding of the situation or event and what could have made it, or could have been, better. Forget about better – what could have been worse as far as the South African economy during... →

Occupations in high demand

11th December 2020 As Thomas Jefferson once said, “it is neither wealth nor splendour but tranquillity and occupation which give you happiness”. That said, do you know whether your occupation is in high demand? If you don’t, you might want to consult the Government Gazette of November 26, in which Higher Education,... →

South Africa’s Limbo economy

4th December 2020 According to British rock band Queen, “too much love will kill you; just as sure as none at all”, while Cable News Network’s (CNN’s) take is that “too much bad news can make you sick”. If you read a lot of news about the South African economy, you are at risk of falling sick, if what CNN’s... →

A pledge is what exactly?

27th November 2020 As my school memories fade, there is one that is stubbornly refusing to go away: the dreaded pledge page. The most memorable thing about the pledge page was its addictive smell. For the benefit of younger readers, in the 1980s, copies were made using a Rexograph, better known as a spirit... →

Bloated, unsustainable and unaffordable

20th November 2020 These three words could serve as a collective description of the many ills of the South African economy, and are at the very heart of an impending economic disaster, which is attributable to a concerted government policy. It was eluded to in last week’s column. A recent Reuters headline screamed:... →

The abyss also gazes into you

13th November 2020 Where to start? In the words of Arthur Ashe, the only black man to ever win Wimbledon, the US Open and the Australian Open singles titles: “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Well, here I am, rereading Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s October 28 Medium-Term Budget Policy... →

Looking back to look forward

6th November 2020 Although it is too early to offer a reflection on this year, as there are still over 55 days left before saying au revoir to 2020, the release of the Economic Stimulus and Recovery Plan made me contemplate South Africa’s post-1994 economic policy documents. Can you recall how many economic policy... →

‘Plans’ to kick-start economy

30th October 2020 Of all the articles and opinion pieces that have appeared since President Cyril Ramaphosa’s speech of October 15, titled ‘Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan’, not one touched on another of the President’s speeches, delivered 755 days earlier, on September 21, 2018, and titled ‘Economic... →

A national danger, a national scandal

23rd October 2020 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 view. Should you be reading the electronic copy of the column, only the first 50 odd words would be visible before you would need to... →

A Victor, Uniform, or Lima Recovery?

16th October 2020 The International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, commonly known as the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) phonetic alphabet, is the most widely used radiotelephone spelling alphabet. In creating the alphabet, the ICAO assigned codewords acrophonically to the letters of the... →

Poverty and inequality

9th October 2020 While contemplating last week’s column, ‘The poor and miserable simply cannot be let be’, it dawned on me that the meaning of ‘poverty’ and ‘inequality’ – two of the most misused words in South Africa – might well be misconstrued. The most prominent government document on the topic is the... →

The poor and miserable simply cannot be let be

2nd October 2020 South Africa, and more especially its economy, is in deep trouble. When I find myself in similar circumstance, I recall the lyrics of the Beatles song, Let It Be: “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me; Speaking words of wisdom, let it be; And in my hour of darkness she... →

Knightian uncertainty

25th September 2020 The 1980s in South Africa might have been an idyllic time for some, but they were a period of discontentment for others. The mid- to late 1980s were my formative years for me. My most vivid memory of the time was going to the drive-in – that is watching a movie in a car, for younger readers. As I... →

Hippopotomonstroses-quippedaliophobia

18th September 2020 If “the biggest word you ever heard”, as the song goes, is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, then you are in for a shock, as this piece’s title is longer. It is, in fact, one of the longest words in the English language.[Unknown A1] The longest word in English, which is five letters longer... →

Monitoring export barriers

11th September 2020 It has been 81 years since World War Two (WWII) started – on September 1, 1939 – and, as you read this piece, just more than a week since the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) launched the Export Barriers Monitoring Mechanism (EBMM). The intention of the EBMM is to help South... →

Existing together in a delicate balance

4th September 2020 Long before motivational quotes found fame on electronic media, at a time when ‘www’ meant little more than the Wild Wild West – in a World Without Windows, you could say – I was given an A3 page. I was mesmerised, not by its appearance, as it was just a white page with very large bold black... →

Swelling words of emptiness

28th August 2020 As South Africans, we tend to think that we have an intimate understanding of South Africa and how it operates. If this line of thinking is true, then our parents should be open books to us, but alas, even they are strangers too. All this is reminiscent of the French novelist Andre Malraux, who... →

Economics of corruption

21st August 2020 If there is a single topic that economists tend to avoid researching, it is corruption, which tends to be assumed to reside in the realms of political science and sociology. At a time where another ‘C’ (Covid-19) is wreaking havoc on an unprecedented scale, corruption seems to be obscured from... →

Promises make debt, and debt makes promises

14th August 2020 Let us start this week’s column with a truth, for at the moment, the truth is as scarce as a hen’s teeth. Truth be told, the title of this piece is borrowed from a Dutch proverb. If there is a single message, a single life lesson, that resonates with me, it is that one should never incur debt of... →

Trade facilitation versus protectionism

7th August 2020 In the instalment of this column published on July 3, which was titled ‘Protectionism on the increase’, I expressed my concern at the intensification of the protectionist mentality. Those old enough would acknowledge that the underlying reason for the start of the Second World War was the ‘R’... →

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