Cape Town - The Department of Trade and Industry (dti) announced on Wednesday that it was hosting an export workshop in Gauteng that would enable it to position South Africa as a reliable export partner.
The department kicked off a three-day workshop on Wednesday in Pretoria at the Saint George Hotel and Convention Centre. The workshop, which is scheduled to run until June 19, is focused on exports and improving the country’s export capacity.
Called Team Exports South Africa (TESA), the theme of the workshop is “Export-driven Economic Growth and Industrialisation in South Africa”.
Key leaders and stakeholders in the export industry would be attending the workshop to discuss issues pertinent to the country’s export industry.
Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said the workshop “is geared to enable the dti, the export formations and other key stakeholders at local, provincial and national level to engage on the national export agenda and discuss concrete plans which will contribute to the realisation of the National Development Plan (NDP) and the New Growth Path (NGP) imperatives”.
Davies said that the aim of the workshop was to ensure that people were on the same page when it comes to talking about the vision for the country’s export industry and its growth going forward.
The aim of the workshop, said Davies, “is to cultivate a common vision that will enable the dti to fulfill its mandate of contributing towards positioning the country as a reliable partner in increasing export products and services, by providing a platform for stakeholders to share challenges and opportunities and develop other solutions”.
In addition to this, TESA is an opportunity for stakeholders to collaborate with one another and see how they can work together to implement the National Exporter Development Programme (NEDP) and the reviewed Export Council Model.
Davies said TESA would play a critical role in “providing strategic direction in driving the national export agenda, soliciting support in the government industrialisation efforts, working with the export councils in enhancing the export base and increasing exports of value added goods and services, and diversifying markets, and thereby addressing the widening trade deficit and realising broader government imperatives”.
Furthermore, collaboration will enable stakeholders to see how they can work together to achieve the goals of the NDP and the NGP.
ANA