The Gauteng City Region (GCR) is continuing its efforts to grow trade and investment in South Africa’s most populous province and stimulate national economic growth.

“The GCR is strategically located on the African continent, this makes it a key investment destination for the rest of the world and a trade gateway for imports and exports,” Premier David Makhura said at media briefing on Friday on the Gauteng provincial government’s (GPG’s) trade and investment initiatives.

Projecting the African economic powerhouse as the premier trade and investment destination on the continent, he said a number of inroads had been made in boosting exports through leveraging the fairly new Gauteng International Relations Strategy.

Eighteen months after its establishment, the strategy has enabled a more focused and coordinated approach to international relations and trade, including the involvement of companies supplying inputs to mega infrastructure projects in major development corridors on the continent.

Further, the province had benchmarked against its global peers as holding a competitive advantage in innovation and talent, infrastructure, attractive Department of Trade and Industry-led incentives and the ability of the city to meet and respond to diverse trade and investor requirements, Makhura added.

The province, home to 40% of South Africa’s business and services sector, maintained its 35.1% contribution to the national gross domestic product, as well as moving, over the past 15 years, from accounting for 62.1% of South Africa’s trade to 64.6%.

“We believe [that] with our new adopted international relations strategy within a strong Southern African Development Community region and [the rest of] Africa, and through the work led by our trade investment agency, the Gauteng Growth and Development Agency, we will increase our trade flows over the next few years,” he said.

The international relations strategy aims to boost exports from Gauteng and attract foreign direct investment into the province.

The Gauteng Economic Plan identified key tradable sectors, including manufacturing, financial and business services, transport and communication, agriculture and mining, which are able to export goods and services, attract foreign currency inflows and deliver a multiplier effect in the local economy.

Wholesale retail and trade, transport and communications, finance and business services, government, personal and social services account for about three-quarters of Gauteng’s gross value-added trade by region, he noted.

Intra-Africa trade increased from R512-billion in 2014 to R518-billion by 2015.

The European Union (EU) is currently the region’s largest trading partner, with exports valued at some R175-billion.

The US, the UK, Germany and India accounted for R33-billion, R6.8-billion, R34.9-billion and R32-billion respectively.

The GPG also engaged Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well as African countries, such as Angola, Morocco, and more advanced economies including the UK, Netherlands, the US, Germany, Switzerland and Japan, besides others.

The GPG continued its engagements with ambassadors based in the province, as well as the different foreign chambers, including the German Chamber, the British Chamber, the American Chamber, the UK Chamber and the EU Chamber, besides others.

Work is under way to add capacity and enhance investment through the value-added facilitation of the targeted investment in strategic economic sectors and the formalisation of trade linkages globally.

Makhura also alluded to “more intense trade and investment activity locally,” pointing to much follow-up on work already done on a tight budget.

The Gauteng Legislature approved a 2015/16 budget of R5.2-million, of which just under R1.2-million was spent, which decreased to R4.4-million for the 2016/17 financial year, of which some R1.6-million has been spent to date.