CAPE TOWN: Rob Davies, South Africa’s Minister of Trade and Industry, recently announced the upcoming launch of Trade Africa, which will replace what was previously known as the Africa Export Council. The initiative consists of a governmental unit within the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), whose goal will be to promote and facilitate trade relations between South Africa and the rest of the continent
Trade Africa aims to “leverage the state’s capacity to unlock the bottlenecks experienced by South African businesses when operating in the rest of Africa, through deliberate, targeted and well-defined financial and non-financial interventions as described in the Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP) and other government policies,” says Davies in a press release published earlier this week.
The initiative will be launched along with the Guidelines for Good Business Practice by South African Companies. The guidelines emphasise good corporate governance by South African companies in the rest of the continent as a focal point to promote responsible business practice.
Davies goes on to say that the guidelines have been developed with a view to encourage South African business to be “responsible corporate citizens” and to continuously strive 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,” he adds. As such, the guidelines should allow for a better alignment between the business sector activities and the government’s policy objectives on the continent.
The Trade Africa initiative is to be presented on 15 July 2016 at a roundtable discussion at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria. The discussion, themed “Collective Action to Enhance Intra African Trade,” will act more as “a platform for information sharing on regional economic integration initiatives to support enhanced intra-Africa trade as well as discuss the private sector’s role in fostering regional economic integration and intra-Africa trade, among others,” says Davies. The decision to switch from the Africa Export Council to Trade Africa was motivated by the “importance of facilitating the increase of intra-Africa trade more broadly,” said Bongani Lukhele, spokesperson for the DTI.
According to Davies, “the initiative is premised on the need to have a dedicated unit responsible for driving South Africa’s exports of manufactured goods and services whilst creating sourcing relationships from the Continent to promote intra Africa trade.” Currently, Africa’s largest trading partners are Europe, the US, and Asia, with intra-regional trade accounting for only about 13 percent of all goods and services traded within the continent. As such, the initiative could thus contribute to increase the currently low share of intra-African trade, by facilitating trade between South Africa and its continental partners with targeted measures.
