South Africa’s Trade Africa initiative, launched on Friday, has the potential to yield approximately US$2.6 trillion in trade revenue, according to Joanmariae Fubbs, chairwoman of Parliament's portfolio committee on trade and industry.
Speaking at the launch of Trade Africa – a dti initiative that seeks to foster regional economic integration and intra-Africa trade and investment – in Pretoria on Friday, Fubbs said that creating an environment for enhanced intra-Africa trade required a coordinated and collective approach.
“In improving our trade and investment links in Africa, we recognise the importance of ensuring that we are mindful of the need to continuously manage and improve South Africa's reputation as a responsible continental player,” Fubbs said.
Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies, has also launched a one-stop shop – called Trade Invest Africa – to support intra-Africa trade and intra-Africa investments which will provide support to South African businesses doing business in the rest of Africa. This will include incentives.
Davies said the rest of Africa presented great opportunities for South African companies. “We need to build on our investment capacity and promote trade through investment. We already have a number of South African companies who are some of the largest investors in the African continent, and therefore we want to drive an investment-led African trade initiative,” he commented.
Davies also launched a set of guidelines for good business practice for companies operating in the rest of Africa, signed by representatives of government and business.
“Although these are signed on a voluntary basis, we want to encourage South African businesses to sign the Code of Conduct and align themselves to it. Signing this code means we can also tell our counterparts in other countries that these companies are aligned with our code,” he said.
