Pretoria - South Africa is committed to a coordinated strategy to boost intra-Africa trade and to build an integrated market in Africa, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said on Friday.
The chairwoman of Parliament's portfolio committee on trade and industry, Joan Fubbs, said that creating an environment for enhanced intra-Africa trade required a coordinated and collective approach between various stakeholders to ensure that obstacles were minimised while opportunities were maximised.
“In improving our trade and investments links in Africa, we recognise the importance of ensuring that we are mindful of the need to continuously manage and improve South Africa's reputation as a responsible continental player,” Fubbs said.
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“Accordingly, we need to promote and enhance responsible business conduct and good corporate citizenship to ensure that while we advance South Africa's national imperatives, we do so in a manner that advances the developmental priorities of the rest of the continent.”
Fubbs was speaking at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria on Friday at the launch of Trade Africa, a DTI initiative that seeks to foster regional economic integration and intra-Africa trade and investment.
Fubbs commended the DTI for the launch of Trade Africa initiative, saying it was a positive development that had a potential to see a market of over one billion people coming together and could yield approximately $2.6 trillion.
The Trade Africa initiative was the DTI’s programme previously called Africa Export Council, but was recently changed to reflect the importance of facilitating intra-African trade more broadly. According to the DTI, the initiative aims to focus on promoting two-way trade between South Africa and the rest of the continent.
It is designed to support South African exporters in supplying value-added goods and services and to support South African importers in the sourcing of goods from the continent.
Guidelines for good business practice by South African companies operating in the rest of Africa were also set to be launched on Friday. Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies would deliver a keynote address later on the launch of Trade Africa initiative.
AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY