According to finance minister Pravin Gordhan, the World Bank has named South Africa as the country that has improved the most when it comes to facilitating cross border trade.

The customs modernisation programme of SARS has greatly contributed to the improvement, which Gordhan said was having a “significant impact” on trade facilitation for legitimate goods.

He quoted the World Bank Doing Business Report 2013, published in October, as saying: “In 2011/12 South Africa improved the most in the ease of trading across borders as measured by Doing Business. Through its customs modernisation programme it implemented measures that reduced the time, cost and documents required for international trade. Improvements in South Africa have effects throughout Southern Africa. Since overseas goods to and from Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zimbabwe transit through South Africa, traders in these economies are also enjoying the benefits.”

In a written reply to a parliamentary question by African National Congress MP Siphiwo Mazosiwe, Gordhan said that the World Bank report stated that South Africa had improved its import time frame from 32 days in 2011 to 23 days in 2012.

Two factors that make a large difference in cutting down on import times is document preparation and customs clearance. South Africa has cut down on these two processes by half with document preparation now taking one week rather than two weeks and customs clearance taking two days rather than four days.