Cape Town - The South African Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies, will launch the DTI's newly renamed Trade Africa Programme during a roundtable discussion on collective action to enhance intra-African trade on Friday.
DTI spokesman Sidwell Medupe told the African News Agency (ANA) that the unit's name had been changed from Africa Export Council to reflect the importance of facilitating intra-African trade more broadly.
Trade Africa will focus on promoting two-way trade between South Africa and the rest of the continent. The unit 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 will also be launched at Friday's discussion at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria.
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Davies said the Trade Africa initiative was premised on the need to have a dedicated unit responsible for driving South Africa's exports of manufactured goods and services while creating sourcing relationships from the continent. He said the initiative would leverage the state's capacity to unlock bottlenecks experienced by South African businesses operating in the rest of Africa through targeted financial and non-financial interventions as described in the Industrial Policy Action Plan and other government policies.
He said the roundtable discussion was intended to promote collaboration between government, the private sector and other key stakeholders in fostering trade in Africa and optimising economic benefits thereof. Davies said the discussion was also designed to be a platform for information sharing on regional economic integration initiatives as well as to discuss the private sector's role in regional integration.
On the guidelines for good business practice, the minister said this proactive initiative by government was intended to ensure alignment between government and the private sector when engaging with the continent.
“The guidelines aim to encourage South African business to be responsible corporate citizens and to continuously work to minimise operations that have a negative social, economic or environmental impact.
“This will in turn improve their public image and reputation in the countries and societies in which they operate,” Davies said.
AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY