No capital controls are applied to non-residents. Corporations have been allowed to make increasingly large offshore investments, and to raise foreign capital against their domestic balance sheets. Institutions have been allowed to participate in asset swaps and to invest a proportion of their earnings offshore. The government will seek to ensure that the lifting of the few remaining restrictions occurs without placing undue pressure on the balance of payments. The list of goods requiring import permits is specified each year in the annual Import Control Program.
Permits are valid for imports from any country.
No Foreign Trade Zones or Free Ports are established in South Africa. South Africa uses the Harmonised System of Classification. Samples are dutiable unless they are cut samples of cloth, leather, linoleum and wallpaper in book form and not for distribution as advertising matter. Samples that have no commercial value because of mutilation in some way are also allowed duty-free access. The South African Government has viewed countertrade as a second-best alternative to be engaged in only when normal trade cannot be conducted.