Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies will on Friday launch Trade Africa, formerly known as the Africa Export Council, a unit established within the Department of Trade and Industry to promote South Africa’s trade relations with the African continent.

The initiative will be launched together with the Guidelines for Good Business Practice by South African companies operating in the rest of Africa at a roundtable discussion on intra-Africa trade at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.

In a statement issued on Monday, Davies said the creation of the Trade Africa initiative was premised on the need to have a dedicated unit responsible for driving South Africa’s exports of manufactured goods and services while creating sourcing relationships from the continent to promote intra-Africa trade. 

He noted that the purpose of the initiative was to leverage the State’s capacity to unlock the bottlenecks experienced by South African businesses when operating in the rest of Africa, through deliberate, targeted and well-defined financial and nonfinancial interventions as described in the Industrial Policy Action Plan and other government policies.

“The roundtable discussion, which is themed Collective Action to Enhance Intra-Africa Trade, is intended to promote collaboration between government and the private sector, as well as key stakeholders in fostering trade and optimising economic benefits on the African continent,” he explained.

He added that the discussion was also aimed as a platform for information sharing on regional economic integration initiatives to support enhanced intra-Africa trade, as well as discuss the private sector’s role in fostering regional economic integration and intra-Africa trade, besides others.

“The guidelines for good business practice aim to encourage South African business to be responsible corporate citizens and to continuously work to reduce operations that have a negative social, economic or environmental impact. This will, in turn, improve their public image and reputation in the countries and societies in which they operate,” he said.