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The subdued domestic economic performance continues to weigh on overall trade conditions. The tight conditions were confirmed by the latest SACCI Trade Conditions Surveys for November and December 2025.  From improving marginally in November, the trade climate deteriorated in December, with 60% of the respondents experiencing limited trade activities. Despite continuing difficult conditions, 45% of the respondents on average experienced a better trade climate in 2025 than the 39% of 2024. According to the December 2025 Survey 51% of the respondents noted that trade conditions improved in December 2024. See attached Infographic. 

Close to 70% of the respondents to the December 2025 Trade Survey expected trade conditions to improve over the next six months. However, there appears to be a broadening gap between current new orders and expectations on sales volumes as it is noticeable that current constrained new orders do not match the higher sales expectations.  Expectations on all elements of trade except for input prices contributed to the positive expectations on the trade environment six months from now. 

The changes to global trade relations and the linkage effects are filtering through and the necessary compliance to the changing global trade environment has become a matter of urgency. It appears that actions to diverge South Africa’s foreign trade are a bigger challenge that involve quality, logistic bottlenecks, competitive prices and consistency of supply to markets.  The private sector is well suited by way of their associations in collaboration with the public sector (apart from trade agreements) to exploit global trade opportunities. 

Respondents expect price pressures to remain high with expected sales prices (74%) and input costs (84%) to rise further. Consumer inflation stayed low at 3.5% in November 2025 while producer inflation measured 1.8%. Electricity tariffs soared by 15.9% y/y in November.  The lowering of the inflation target to about 3% will impose strict discipline on the application of price and tariff increases in the private and public sectors.  

Credit to households rose by 3.5% y/y and by 11.4% y/y to business in November 2025. This came in support of households and business experiencing financial stress and contributed to maintaining trade activity increased retail sales volumes. Decreased trade activities were lately evident in the construction sector, merchandise export volumes and new vehicles sales. 

Given the tight and varying trade conditions, respondents employed more temporary staff in December 2025 but with no additional employment expected in the next six months. 

Issued by SACCI