The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies says South Africa needs to address the challenge of the current account deficit by increasing the export of the country’s value added products. Minister Davies was speaking at the launch of the National Exporter Development Programme that was hosted by the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) at the Royal Elephant Hotel in Centurion, Pretoria today.
“Recent trade statistics show that as a country we are importing more than what we are exporting and this means that we have our work cut out to reverse this trend. We need to increase our exports, particularly the export of value added products. We need to capture all of the South African market by encouraging the manufacturing, procurement and consumption of the proudly South African products. We need to reduce the volume of imports by giving preference to the SA goods,” said Davies.
He added that the National Exporter Development Programme was designed to assist and prepare exporters to become more active on the international stage.
“The programme is intended to bring about an agreed standard set of interventions to support and improve the export readiness of companies in South Africa. But there is an evolutionary process that is going to begin with one being a domestic export enterprise to being an explorer, to export aware, export ready and eventually being a global exporter,” said Davies
Minister Davies said the success of the implementation of the programme, which is going to include developing a pool of export-ready companies, contributing to export growth, developing new markets and new export products through extensive capacity building and mentorship, provision of information and implementation of special projects including export villages and national pavilions, will rely highly on partnerships.
To this end, provincial MECs will sign a pledge to commit themselves and their departments to assist businesspeople in their respective provinces to access the programme and benefit from it. In addition, the Trade and Investment Division of the dti signed a Memorandum of Agreement with Proudly South African to assist in the implementation of some aspects of the programme, particularly the export villages.
Enquiries:
Sidwell Medupe
Departmental Spokesperson
Tel: 012 394 1650
Cell: 079 492 1774
E-mail: MSMedupe@thedti.gov.za
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