From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, this is the Real Economy Report. Germany-based lightning and surge protection, earthing components and safety equipment manufacturer, DEHN + SÖHNE, has officially opened a local subsidiary, DEHN PROTECTION SOUTH AFRICA, in Johannesburg. Nomvelo Buthelezi reports.

Nomvelo Buthelezi:
Establishing its first local subsidiary DEHN + SÖHNE, DEHN PROTECTION SOUTH AFRICA MD Alexis Barwise speaks to Engineering News about the various strategies that the company has to penetrate the South African market and the African market.

DEHN PROTECTION SOUTH AFRICA MD Alexis Barwise:
From a DEHN SOUTH AFRICA point of view we have established a partner programme where we have, together with our partners, work on a way forward in order to not only create demand from an experience side of our employees but also from our partners establishment within things like vendors within companies presence in Southern and African market so it is going to be a hand washed the other with the other scenarios. We are going to support them from a knowledge transfer point of view, technical back-up and they will bring us the opportunities due to their presence in the market.

Nomvelo Buthelezi:
Barwise discussed the new opportunities that DEHN PROTECTION SOUTH AFRICA will bring to the country.

Alexis Barwise:
A multiple, the first would be again as stated earlier, the knowledge transfer from a company that has over 100 years of experience in lightning and surge protection.

We would share this via seminars, time spent with end users, training and also training up our old staff and we might also bring manufacturing in the future and that may be a very big possibility for us. With that comes job creation and with job creation we obviously add value to the market itself and that is really what we can bring from an opportunity point of view. Also a lot of funds are being transferred into this country and are being invested here from Germany and that is also something that would make our country benefit from this and that is an opportunity as well for us.

Nomvelo Buthelezi:
DEHN + SÖHNE MD DR Philipp Dehn speaks about the unique features that DEHN PROTECTION SOUTH AFRICA will bring compared to other established companies.

DEHN + SÖHNE MD DR Philipp Dehn:
The company DEHN is more than 100 years old and has more than 100 years of experience. We are a family owned company and we are not belonging to a stock market, so we can have a very long term orientated strategy and we have a lot of patents and we have a lot of technicians and that is unique to other companies.
Time out: 13:16:48:18

Nomvelo Buthelezi:
Dehn concludes by explaining the decisions that led the company to choose South Africa as an investment opportunity.

Philipp Dehn:
DEHN has a clear strategy to go to other countries to internationalise the company and as we have in the European community a slightly down turn in growth, we are concentrating since several years in other countries especially the BRICS countries and when you are looking at the BRICS countries you see very fast the potential of South Africa and the long term potential of South Africa and that is why we decided to invest here.

Shannon de Ryhove:
Other news making headlines this week: Johannesburg considers ways to bolster food security and reduce waste.

Almost half of the food produced worldwide ends up on landfill sites, with South Africa contributing more than 9.4-million tons to this global scourge. Meanwhile, Johannesburg Mayor Parks Tau pointed out at a waste summit that about a quarter of Johannesburg’s 4.4-million residents go without food for an average of three days each month.

Johannesburg mayor Parks Tau

That’s Creamer Media’s Real Economy Report. Join us again next week for more news and insight into South Africa’s real economy.