“As a well-developed industrial country which has important mineral, agricultural and industrial products for export, and offers a growing market for a variety of sophisticated imports and a profitable and promising field for investment, South Africa figures prominently in the international
economic system. It is the leading industrial country on the African continent and is the core area for the whole of Southern Africa. It is the object of this paper to examine South Africa’s external economic relations with particular reference to this regional significance which, as a
result of changing environmental factors, is in process of being strengthened. By way of introduction, it may be useful to indicate, very briefly, how the parameters of South African foreign policy have been modified over the past half-century.”