South Africa\u2019s (SA) agricultural sector could see significant gains following a new trade framework signed with China that will allow tariff-free access for a range of local products into the Chinese market.<\/p>\n
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Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau signed the framework agreement with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing this week, where he is leading a SA delegation at the Joint Economic and Trade Commission meeting.<\/p>\n
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The agreement, known as the China\u2013Africa Economic Partnership, is expected to pave the way for further negotiations on an Early Harvest Agreement by the end of March 2026, aimed at fast-tracking market access for selected goods.<\/p>\n
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Agricultural analysts say the development offers local farmers an opportunity to diversify export destinations beyond traditional Western markets and tap into growing demand in Asia.<\/p>\n
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Senior Agricultural Economist at FNB, Paul Makube, says the deal could unlock new investment across the sector.<\/p>\n
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\u201cObviously, the more markets that are opened, the better. From an expansion perspective, this creates an opportunity to move greater volumes of produce and to enter a new phase of investment in the sector,\u201d Makube said.<\/p>\n
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He added that increased access to the Chinese market could have downstream effects on production.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe are likely to see rising demand for land and for various fruit commodities as producers respond to the opportunity to expand output for export,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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–ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14413,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-23421","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"SA agricultural sector could see significant gains following a new trade framework signed with China","published_date":"2026-02-07 07:55:01","news_description":"SA agricultural sector could see significant gains following a new trade framework signed with China","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26395,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23421\/revisions\/26395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=23421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}