South Africa is casting its trade net even wider at the Outward Selling Mission (OSM) in Peru.
South African Ambassador to Peru, Rachel Rasmeni, on Monday expressed South Africa’s intensions to expand its trade links with the South American country.
The Department of Trade and Industry (dti) is leading a delegation on the OSM to Peru, which got underway on Monday.
“The purpose of this mission is to promote closer cooperation in entrepreneurial sectors of both Peru and South Africa. This is done in order to stimulate and explore trade opportunities, to identify potential trade partners, and to analyse possible integration alternatives. South Africa is ready to do business with Peru.
"The group of companies that we are bringing here are ready to interact with you, collaborate with you in identifying trade and investment opportunities in both countries, so that we can work together in doing business, which will increase our trade and investment,” said Rasmeni at a seminar with Peruvian and South African businesspeople.
The seminar marked the commencement of a week-long programme of activities that the dti lined up for the businesspeople it funded to look for trade and investment opportunities in the South American country.
Rasmeni said the mission presents businesspeople with an opportunity to learn from each other through exchanging experiences and to establish business opportunities in South Africa, Peru and Ecuador, which she is also servicing as an Ambassador.
“Let us ensure that after this mission, we continue to expand and strengthen the economic relations between the two countries. We need to identity relevant projects and implement them. As someone who is based in this country, I want to assure the South African businesspeople here today that Peruvians are looking forward to doing business with you,” said Rasmeni.
She urged businesspeople to take advantage of the networking opportunities that the mission offers, as well as gather as much market intelligence as possible about the Peruvian economy and doing business in the country.
Topics at the seminar included business opportunities in South Africa and Peru, doing business in Peru, as well as issues related to tariffs, logistics, and import barriers.
The President of the Lima Chamber of Commerce, Yolanda Torriani, emphasised the importance of business-to-business collaboration and government-to-government cooperation in stimulating trade and investment between South Africa and Peru.
Torriani said more can be done by the private sector and governments of the two countries to give impetus to the two-way bilateral trade, which has impressively grown from just over R800 million in 2016 to almost R1.5 billion.
The companies’ participation in the mission is funded by the dti through its Export Marketing and Investment Assistance (EMIA) scheme. The objective of the scheme is to develop export markets for South African products and services and to recruit new foreign direct investments into the country, aligned to the President’s investment drive.
The mission, forms part of the dti’s efforts to strengthen bilateral trade relations and increase trade and investment between South Africa and Peru. The mission will conclude on Thursday. - SAnews.gov.za
