Background
South Africa was banned in the year 1986 by the United States of America, due to its apartheid act. The nation was prohibited from participating in international trade with the Americans as well as obtaining loans to fund government expenditure. In addition, the ban prohibited the local airlines from flying to the United States, and Americans were not permitted to create fresh savings or invest in South Africa.
Until recently, the US president lifted the ban on South Africa allowing it to borrow from America and its airlines can now fly to the US. In the past, the economic and political relationship between South Africa and the US seemed unfavorable as they did not trade or support each other because the ban imposed on South Africa prohibited. Following the lifting of the ban the two countries can now trade with each other freely as their citizens can invest and trade.
On political grounds, South Africa can borrow funds from the US intended for individual government spending. The move greatly improves the relationship between the countries as they can discuss the issues affecting each other and come up with a mutually acceptable solution for both of them. However, other bans on the country were never uplifted, this includes a prohibition of south Africa borrowing from the international lending bodies like IMF or the world bank, the country imports for military and police facilities and weapons as well as prohibition from getting intelligence assistance from other countries.
This has isolated South Africa from other parts of the world hence denying it the benefits of international trade. These benefits include specialization and utilization of the relative benefit theory that permits a country to concentrate on what it can produce cheaply. In addition, the country’s source of foreign exchange is limited hence its balance of payments and terms of trade are unfavorable.
More so, the country’s internal security is jeopardized as they can not access the recent intellect amenities and information as well as military and police weapons to fight crime. However, with the current ban lifting the nation can now assist in the fight against terrorism that seems to be a worldwide disaster as they can access the current technologies capable of detecting terrorist weapons. Both countries can consequently benefit from commodities from each other with South Africa being the biggest producer of minerals such as coal, diamond, and platinum, etc.
The trade between the two will greatly improve the standards of living of their citizens as well as their respective government’s budgets as they can easily lend and trade with one another. In addition, the United States is committed to relieving South Africa part of its national debt in order to concentrate on health and education matters such as fighting HIV-AIDS that is prevalent in the country and other infectious diseases.
Business Values
South Africa has 11 certified languages where English is exclusively spoken in offices and workplaces for white-collar jobs. The nation is made up of different ethnic groups of different cultural backgrounds. This includes the indigenous blacks, others include white Europeans, Indians, Chinese, etc who live in the country as a result of immigration and colonization thus these foreigners reside in the country permanently.
Therefore, the nation is considered multi-culturally oriented due to its cultural diversity. Society considers the family to be the basic unit and refers to both the nuclear and the extended family. The blacks traditionally are attached to their extended and nuclear family units different from other ethnic groups that seem to appraise their nuclear family. However, the current economic changes and adoption of western values tend to interrupt the family and tribal values.
The nation is dominated by Christians with many practicing Roman Catholicism, however, the citizens are highly individualistic and conservative in their private and trade affairs. Consequently, on the issues regarding business values, South Africans believe in good relationships with their business partners, though they do not require a long-term relationship to enter into a business deal. In addition, they highly appraise networking to expand their businesses as well as mutual trust meant for business concessions and long-lasting agreements.
Decision-making is usually deliberated by the senior managers but after getting the opinions of all the stakeholders in the business. More so, they treasure agreement by the majority and situations where all the stakeholders are bound to prevail. The dressing in many offices is becoming untailored where majority prefer old-fashioned clothes.