South Africa has to find ways of ensuring that small businesses participate actively in the global market, through not only export facilitation, trade exhibitions and market access opportunities obtained through preferential market opportunities, but also through joint ventures, foreign direct investment and access to capacity building, says Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu.

Speaking at the Southern African International Trade Exhibition (Saitex), in Midrand, Zulu highlighted that government’s Nine-Point Plan to boost economic growth and create much-needed jobs “could potentially accelerate the growth of the economy by an additional 0.8 percentage points in the short term and one percentage point in the medium to long term”. This was in addition to the projected growth of 0.7% in 2016.

Key to this are exports, particularly in the revitalisation of agriculture and agroprocessing, as well as the Industrial Policy Action Plan.

“South Africa’s trade policy intends to take advantage of Africa’s improved growth prospects by increasing exports of goods and services to the region,” Zulu said.

She noted that this was intended to deepen African integration and position South Africa as a hub for African regional and global engagement, as well as lead Africa in negotiations to reduce barriers to African export development and development in markets.

Statistics South Africa has indicated that exports to sub-Saharan Africa comprise almost 20% of South Africa’s total merchandise exports, excluding gold, with these exports representing a significant share of total imports in many Southern African countries.

There had also been positive trade cooperation between Africa and Asian countries, with exports from Asia to Africa having increased 20% a year from 2000 to 2005.

South Africa’s trade relations with the rest of the continent, therefore, provided an opportunity to benefit from the strong economic growth in the Asian economies and the Southern African region, stated Zulu.

Emphasising that Saitex spoke to the importance of trade and investment opportunities South Africa had in place for small, medium-sized and microenterprises (SMMEs) and cooperatives, Zulu urged the continuation of encouraging and propelling SMMEs and companies through expos and exhibitions such as Saitex.

Saitex focused on increasing market opportunities for the City of Johannesburg’s (CoJ’s) value-added goods and services and was hosted by the CoJ’s Department of Economic Development, the Polish embassy, the Progressive Business Forum, the Department of Small Business Development, the Small Enterprise Development Agency and the departments of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Trade and Industry and Economic Development.

The key aims of Saitex were to create an environment for like-minded individuals to deliberate and find common solutions to countries’ respective growth parameters, as well as the support of business transactions, matching the right type of product to the right kind of buyer, emphasised member of the Mayoral Committee for Economic Development and CoJ Councillor Ruby Mathang.

Mathang highlighted the CoJ’s export competitiveness and Polish market access, underscoring the first economic cooperation agreement between South Africa and Poland, signed in 2013 in Midrand, when the two countries primarily aimed to maximise opportunities in trade and investment development.

“Speaking at that auspicious event, former Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe made the point that our collaboration efforts should result in a greater enabling environment for our respective businessmen and -women,” Mathang said.

He reiterated that, if this relationship between the two countries could be further harnessed, there could be more potential derived from the collaboration between South Africa and Poland, Mathang said.

Saitex consequently included a structured conversation between the South African and Polish governments to achieve the objectives of the exhibition, and to provide more detail for SMMEs and entrepreneurs regarding trade and exports between the countries.

“This effort is reflective of the city’s approach to contributing towards a more sustainable economy – an economy that transcends the policy objective from national to local level,” Mathang said.

Part of the approach was to move away aggressively from being an exporter of raw products and a consumer of finished products to an economy that diversified the production of raw materials into finished goods that could be exported to many trade partners on the African continent and far beyond, he concluded.