Abstract
Export growth has long been regarded as being accelerated by trade liberalisation, defined as the elimination of trade obstacles, the liberalisation of markets, and inclusion into the global economy. This study investigates the effects of trade liberalisation on mining capital exports in South Africa from 1992 to 2023, using both theoretical understanding and empirical data. To ascertain the long-term relationship between the variables, the study used the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds test. The analysis verified that there is a long-term correlation between South Africa's real effective exchange rate, gross domestic product, foreign direct investment, mining capital equipment exports, and trade liberalisation. Furthermore, it was shown that mining capital equipment exports had a long-term, favourable, and noteworthy impact on trade liberalisation. The study concludes that complementing policies, such as strategies for export promotion, trade facilitation measures, and investments in production capacity, are required in order to fully benefit from trade liberalisation.