Hands-on approach lures investors

Swaziland is a small and personable country, and the personal touch is just the approach that government’s investment promotion agents find is the way to position the country in a competitive regional environment. Overseas investors may find locations that are more populous and have larger volumes of this and that, but the Swaziland Investment Promotion Authority (Sipa) believes its “hands on, we care” approach to assisting incoming businesses is a valuable lure. “We work with investors from the time they arrive in the country, and we never stop,” said John Creamer, a business development director for Sipa. Set up in the 1990s by the Ministry of Enterprise and Employment, Sipa assesses a start-up company’s business, infrastructure, tax, labour relations and other needs, and helps streamline the process. Sipa’s goal is to wed foreign-owned operations with local Swazi suppliers. “We constantly go back to companies once they are established and ask ‘What do you need?’ If their needs can be met by a local supplier, we bring them together. Sometimes, a need isn’t recognized until we go over their operations, and we have had new companies start up to supply those needs,” said Creamer. Sipa’s work attracting investors is helped considerably by government’s efforts to upgrade the country’s highway system, and Swaziland’s proximity to SA, which is both a supplier of materials and purchaser of finished products.