What are Swaziland’s main exports?

The Official Line - Swaziland - July 03 - Saturday 3 June 2006

Sugar and wood pulp remain our most important foreign-exchange earners. Mining has declined in importance in recent years with the depletion of deposits, with only coal and quarry stone mines still active. Sugar is playing an increasingly important role. Raw sugar is exported and then imported back in a different format. One of our main exports is Coca-Cola concentrate. The Coca-Cola bottling plant in Swaziland supplies the whole of Africa.

We want to diversify our market to the European Union, the Americas and Asia, but are concentrating on small and medium enterprises. The untiring efforts of major socioeconomic and political organisations like the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, the Southern African Development Community, the Food and Agricultural Organisation, the World Trade Organisation and the Commonwealth Heads of Government will impact directly on Swaziland’s foreign trade and investment. We believe the establishment of the Swaziland Promotions Authority will also encourage investors to Swaziland.

Attractive incentive packages are offered to potential investors because Swaziland is able to provide an efficient and stable workforce. We are hungry for direct investment and are therefore prepared to bend the rules within reason to facilitate direct foreign investment because we desperately need to turn the economy around.

Swaziland, like every other developing country in the world, will be profoundly affected by the outcome of the five-year Doha Development Round of talks on global trade regimes, scheduled to reach a climax towards the end of this year. We remain cautiously optimistic and we appeal to everyone to appreciate us for what we are and not what people want us to be. If we need help we will ask for it.