JOHANNESBURG: The shortfall on South Africa's trade account narrowed sharply to 2.91 billion rand in September from a revised 16.75 billion rand in August, as the import bill nearly matched that of exports, data from the revenue service showed on Friday.

Exports in September rose by 18.2 percent to 90.79 billion rand and imports by 0.2 percent to 93.71 billion.

The September data brings the cumulative deficit for the year to 73.74 billion rand, compared with a 63.07 billion rand gap over the same period in 2013.

Copyright Reuters, 2014