SA to exhibit wares in Zim trade fair

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Pretoria - The Department of Trade and Industry (dti) is assisting 26 South African companies to exhibit their products and services at the 57th Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF).

The companies, which hail from four of South Africa’s nine provinces, will exhibit their wares at the trade fair that will run from 26 - 30 April 2016.

The dti is assisting the companies through its Export Marketing and Investment Assistance Scheme (EMIA). The objective of the scheme is to develop export markets for South African products and services, as well as to recruit new foreign direct investment into the country.

This is done through provision of marketing assistance to develop new export markets and grow existing export markets, and identification of new export markets through market research, amongst others.

The exhibitors will be the second group of businesses supported by the dti to visit Zimbabwe following the successful Investment and Trade Initiative (ITI) that was led by Deputy Minister Mzwandile Masina last month. The ITI comprised business seminars and site visits in Harare, Gweru and Bulawayo.

In speeches that they delivered at the seminars, Deputy Minister Masina and his Zimbabwean counterpart Chiratidzo Mabuwa emphasised the need to increase bilateral trade and investment between SA and Zimbabwe.

“The fact that in such a short space of time we are taking yet another big group of businesspeople to Zimbabwe confirms our commitment to making sure that trade and investment between our countries increase.

“In the first mission, we emphasised the importance of South African companies investing in Zimbabwe and contributing to growing the economy of that country in order to enable it to create the necessary jobs. We also stressed the need of addressing the trade imbalance between the two countries,” said the Deputy Minister.

The Deputy Minister said the ZITF has a strong international orientation that will afford South African exhibitors an opportunity to gain regional and international business contacts.

“They will also get an opportunity to market their products and services, increase their market knowledge of Zimbabwe, increase exports of South African manufactured goods and services, obtain trade leads, and generate export orders. By establishing their presence in Zimbabwe, South African companies will be able to access other markets on the continent,” said Deputy Minister Masina.

He said assistance provided to SA companies to participate in the ZITF is part of the dti’s integrated national export strategy aimed at developing markets for South Africa’s value-added and manufactured goods and services, with an emphasis on Africa and the emerging markets.

This year’s exhibition will be held under the theme ‘Innovate, Integrate, Industrialise’. – SAnews.gov.za