Wesgro sets its sights on tech exports

Wesgro, the official trade and investment agency of the Western Cape, has big plans to promote the export of technology from the province. Head of International Trade and Development, Denan Kuni, told FTW this was part of a bigger strategy to diversify the Western Cape’s export basket which is currently largely dependent on agriculture and the agro-processing of wine in particular. “We will, in the coming months, be implementing our Trade-in-Services strategy which seeks to boost exports of tech, business process outsourcing (BPO) and agritech,” he said. According to Kuni, diversification of exports would not remove the focus from the province’s prime target areas – agriculture and agroprocessing. “The slowdown in global economic growth is a challenge. There is therefore a need to look at new areas in export
promotion and development which is why we are starting to drive Trade-in-Services,” said Kuni. While refined petroleum is the country’s largest export commodity, citrus fruit, wine, grapes apples, pears and quinces make up the rest of the top five. Fruit juices come in as the 7th largest export followed by fruit, nuts and other edible parts of plants. “Looking at our top ten export commodities it is clear we need to diversify this basket as we are just too vulnerable to external shocks such as drought and the exchange rate,” said Kuni. Commenting on the outlook for the province in the next year, Kuni said he was extremely positive. “We have a large number of high-quality export products in the province that are able to compete  on a global level. We are very positive about the future.”