How dependent is Japan on South Africa?

A product has a dominant supplier when a single country sells more than 50% of what is bought of it; we flag it separately above 75%.

• South Africa sells 37.2% of what the world exports of platinum; next come Russia (8.7%), Germany (6.8%) and United Kingdom (6.6%). The rest of the world exported 7.2 times what Japan buys from South Africa.
• South Africa sells 50.5% of what the world exports of manganese ore; next come Gabon (25.8%), Ghana (8.5%) and Australia (7.7%). The rest of the world exported 24.4 times what Japan buys from South Africa.
• South Africa sells 16.1% of what the world exports of granulated blast-furnace slag; next come China (19.8%), Germany (7.5%) and Spain (4.1%). The rest of the world exported 162.9 times what Japan buys from South Africa.

Exports from the rest of the world already have buyers; the figure shows scale, not availability.

Japan is South Africa’s 7th-largest customer, with 4% of its exports.

• Trade between Japan and South Africa
• Who does Japan rely on?
• Who does South Africa rely on?
• Dependence of Japan on China
• Dependence of Japan on Australia
• Dependence of Japan on the United States
• Dependence of Japan on Taiwan
• Dependence of Japan on Indonesia
• Dependence of Japan on South Korea
• Dependence of Japan on Switzerland
• Dependence of Japan on the Philippines
• Dependence of Japan on Brazil
• Dependence of Japan on Malaysia
• Dependence of Japan on Thailand
• Trade profile of Japan
• Trade profile of South Africa
• All countries

Sources and licenses

• CEPII BACI · Licence Ouverte Etalab 2.0
• Natural Earth · Public domain

Methodology

The data come from CEPII BACI (Etalab 2.0 licence), which reconciles what the exporting and the importing country report, in current USD, FOB. Data up to 2024.

Dependence is the share of a country’s imports (or exports) that each partner accounts for. It does not measure whether a product has a substitute or how much it would cost to change supplier.

The concentration index (HHI) adds up the square of each partner’s share, in percent: it runs from 0 to 10,000. Its equivalent is 10,000 ÷ HHI, the number of partners of the same size that would give that value.

Products are HS4 headings of the 1992 nomenclature (some combine different goods), with a floor of $1 million per product and country.

The EU is the 27 current members in every year; the United Kingdom is outside the EU throughout the series.

Re-exports: countries that act as redistribution hubs carry their notice and the figures are not corrected.