Government moves to establish SA Exim Bank

Director general of the Department of Trade and Industry (dti), Lionel October.

Government is in the process of converting the Export Credit Insurance Council (ECIC) into an Export Import Bank (Exim Bank) to ensure that exporters and export councils have the necessary financial resources they need to grow.

“Government needs to up its game to provide support for exporters to ensure increased growth of South African exports,” said the director general of the Department of Trade and Industry (dti), Lionel October, addressing the Team Export South Africa (TESA) workshop held in Midrand today (Tuesday).

“Countries do not export, companies do. At best we can play the facilitating role but companies should also play their role. We must close the gap between government and exporters, identify top 100 exporters and work with them to break into markets,” said October.

He added that government support should however be subject to companies being compliant with the broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) legislation for government to assist them. 
“We must set the target for exporters to ensure integration of black exporters. B-BBEE is absolutely essential for us to grow the economy and it is integral to incorporate the private sector. We should be firm and say that we will support the automotive sector but there should be compliance with B-BBEE,” October pointed out. 

CEO of the Black Business Council (BBC), Mohale Ralebitso, added during a panel discussion that government needed to deal with barriers to trade to ensure that there was free flow of trade. According to him, this included improved logistics coordination including clearing goods at customs, visas, legislation, red tape and paying SMMEs on time.

“Trade facilitation is pivotal - as well as agency alignment to ensure that businesses are able to trade easily. The dti and Home Affairs department need to coordinate for instance on issues of visas for business at least. We learnt from Kenya that other African countries need us to look at intra trade, meaning that as we export to those countries we also import from them to address the issue of trade imbalance,” he said..