China’s promise of duty-free access to SA fruit is a decade-long gamble

Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen is steadily negotiating increased exports of South African fruit to China, but it is not clear how much or when Beijing’s much-touted offer to allow all exports to enter China duty-free will bear fruit for South Africa.

Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau signed a “landmark“ Framework Agreement on Economic Partnership for Shared Prosperity with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao, on 6 February.

The agreement would “see China provide duty-free access to South African export products and will enhance Chinese investment into South Africa”, said Tau. He added that it would offer new opportunities for South African businesses to enter the Chinese market, particularly in sectors such as agriculture, renewable energy and technology.

The comprehensive framework agreement includes a section to implement China’s duty-free offer to Africa, which is due to come into general effect on 1 May. But the fine print reveals that tariffs for many agricultural exports from SA will fall away only after 10 years, said trade analyst Donald MacKay, director of XA Global Trade Advisors.

“This idea that there’s duty-free access to everything into China is just factually not true, or it’s not true immediately,” he added.

He noted that agricultural products were the only ones likely to benefit much from duty-free access. Yet China’s draft offer under the framework agreement states that it will allow duty-free entry for many agricultural products only after 10 years.

According to the draft offer, this would include: fresh oranges and orange juice, grapefruit, lemons, other citrus fruit, wine and other alcoholic beverages, peaches, nectarines, peppers, gingers, lychees, apples, fresh and frozen strawberries, fresh blackberries, raspberries, mulberries and loganberries, kiwis, cranberries, pears, grapes, melons, macadamia nuts and other nuts. Several other exports would become duty-free after two years, and some, immediately.

“But even if we got duty-free access on all agricultural goods tomorrow, this doesn’t deal with the far bigger problem, which is the incredibly lengthy period it takes to get a single agricultural product approved for export to China,” said MacKay.

“If you’re busy applying for cherries to enter China, you can’t apply for blueberries until cherries have been approved, and cherries could take you five to seven years to get an approval.”

China demands this lengthy approval process for removing non-tariff barriers, such as “sanitary and phyto-sanitary” measures, ostensibly to prevent animal and plant imports from infecting Chinese plants, animals and humans.

Export progress

Steenhuisen, though, seems to have accelerated this process. On 15 October 2025, he and Chinese Customs Minister Sun Meijun signed a trade protocol in Shanghai, which opened the Chinese market for the first time to five types of South African stone fruit: apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums and prunes.

Steenhuisen said it was the first time China had negotiated access for multiple stone fruit types from a single country under one deal. This was “a major breakthrough for South African fruit producers and exporters at a time when diversification is essential for our agricultural resilience”.

It would offset some of the immediate impact of the large tariffs the US had imposed on SA exports in 2025, especially plums.

“The opening of the Chinese market could unlock approximately R400-million for us over the next five years, a figure which is projected to double over the next 10 years,” said Steenhuisen.

On 19 February, Steenhuisen and China’s ambassador to South Africa, Wu Peng, witnessed the first shipment of fruit being dispatched under the protocol, about 20,000 cartons of premium plums from the Freshness First packhouse in Franschhoek.

Steenhuisen said the opening of this Chinese market was “a fundamental necessity for South Africa’s economic growth”.

He added that the bilateral trade agreement that grants South African produce tariff-free access into the Chinese market “significantly enhances the competitiveness of local farmers on the global stage”.

Then, on 10 April, Steenhuisen announced that China had agreed to ease the cold treatment requirements for the export of South African citrus to China. This meant that the fruit would not have to be cooled as much as it is now to destroy pests.

He said the new measure would “cement our position as the biggest exporter of citrus to China” by reducing costs for producers and exporters, and ensuring that even higher-quality fruit reached Chinese consumers.

He noted that in 2025, southern Africa exported approximately 204 million cartons of citrus, with South Africa contributing approximately 193 million cartons. Export earnings exceeded $2-billion for the first time, reaching an estimated $2.47-billion.

“This sector supports approximately 140,000 direct jobs at farm and packhouse level, with significantly broader employment across logistics, export services and international distribution.”

‘Genuine opportunity’

It is clear that agricultural exports to China are an important and growing part of the South African economy. But equally clearly, they would be much bigger if China’s import tariffs on all SA exports were rescinded immediately.

MacKay said SA exports to China largely fell into three categories. The largest was minerals and precious metals, which accounted for more than 70% by value of exports and which already entered China duty-free or almost so.

“Then we send a small amount of manufactured goods. Those don’t really matter because what on earth are we going to manufacture that China can't make better and cheaper than us?

“The third category is agricultural products. Here, there’s a genuine opportunity,” he said, but this opportunity would only fully kick in after 10 years, according to China’s draft tariff offer in the “Early Harvest” negotiations under the framework agreement.

The framework agreement was negotiated in the wider context of China last year, offering duty-free access to its markets for all the exports of all African countries with which it has diplomatic relations — in effect, all African countries except Eswatini, which recognises Taiwan and not China.

Because China classifies itself as a “developing” country, under the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) it may not offer non-reciprocal duty-free access to other developing countries. This means that African countries, including South Africa, which get duty-free access to the Chinese market, have to offer China duty-free access in return.

However, a Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (Dtic) official told Daily Maverick: “China has already provided assurances that SA can make tariff commitments that are in form, not substance, and also take into account the different stages of development.”

Trade deficit

He said this meant that SA would be allowed to exclude “sensitive” Chinese products from duty-free entry into South Africa. South Africa already has a massive trade deficit with China. Last year, it was almost R200-billion, and South African manufacturers and workers are wary of offering it even greater access to this market.

The official said the government had drafted a tariff offer to China, which it was now discussing with business and labour for them to identify any sensitive products.

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In February, Business Unity South Africa (Busa) met to consider the framework and expressed concerns about it. It questioned the legal status of the agreement and its overall economic rationale, noting:

• A significant imbalance in projected tariff benefits;
• Limited macroeconomic impact for South Africa as a whole; and
• The concentration of gains in a small number of sectors or firms.

The minutes of the meeting said Busa would raise its issues at a forthcoming meeting of Nedlac.

The Dtic official said the views of business and labour would be fed into the Early Harvest negotiations, which the government was about to start with China to put the trade deal into effect.

The overall framework also envisages later negotiations on other aspects of commercial relations between the two countries, including Chinese investment in SA, more resilient supply chains and green mineral beneficiation. The aim is to conclude all of these within five years.

MacKay said SA’s tariff concessions to China were just “tokens, trying to show that the agreement is WTO-compliant, but there doesn’t seem to be any substance to what SA is offering”.

He suspects that the real purpose of the framework deal with China is not so much to gain greater duty-free access to that market, but to make a political statement. This could be to show the US that South Africa is not as dependent on it for exports as it might think.

He suggested that Pretoria could also have intended the agreement to demonstrate to its domestic constituency that it is diversifying trade to reduce reliance on the hostile Trump administration. DM