Foreign direct investment in South Africa: how big is Southern Africa’s natural product opportunity and what trade issues impede sectoral development?

This study was conducted to identify the scale of the trade opportunity for natural product exports from Southern Africa and to recommend actions to address market access issues constraining sectoral growth.\ud Field research was undertaken in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa and the United Kingdom between 9th January and 25th February 2006. The study concentrated on ten countries in Southern Africa1 with potential to export significant quantities of natural products. These products are defined by the project as follows: being plant derived, occurring naturally, wild harvested or cultivated in situ, sustainably harvested and pro-poor.\ud Eventually eight sample natural products with significant commercial potential were chosen to represent the sector. These are; baobab (Adansonia digitata), kigelia (Kigelia africana), marula (Sclerocarya birrea), ximenia (Ximenai sp.), trichelia (Trichilia emetica), Kalahari melon (Citrullus lanatus), manketti (Schinziophyton rautanenii) and Parinari (Parinari curatellifolia).