Export oriented – Tobela Tapula of Plastics/SA with Lufuno Mammburu and Thokozani Masilela of the DTI and PSA director Anton Hanekom met with convertors and suppliers around the country to workshop the exporter development programme
It is partnering in the national exercise with the Department of Trade and Industry, which is certainly offering incentives for SA manufacturers to develop exports, although the workshop format did suggest that both the Plastics/SA and DTI teams were looking to learn from the process too. The fact of the matter is that quite a large number of convertors are involved in exports … but are not necessarily talking publicly about that aspect of their business. And for obvious reasons.
But, as can be seen from ‘trade indicator: plastics’ table alongside, the industry’s trade balance is lopsided in favour of imports, giving rise to the observation that the local converting industry is being out-competed. This is what the Plastics/SA-DTI programme hopes to turn around, and get local manufacturers to export more.
Many of the export contracts in the industry presently have grown out of personal contacts between SA manufacturers and international customers, quite frequently involving SA businessmen and women now residing elsewhere, incidentally.
Exports from South Africa have lately for some reason been seen as exports into Africa. That may be as a result of the up till recent global enthusiasm for developing growth in Africa, which has recently lost much of its shine. Since we are closest to our African neighbours, shouldn’t we be supplying markets across southern Africa? However, few of the imported goods arriving in South Africa are from African neighbours, so it could be ventured that exports by the industry should not necessarily go into Africa, but to other global destinations.
Recent accounts of exporter experiences in Africa reported in this publication have also urged caution, since the risks of border crossing and logistic hurdles and payment problems are very real. However, many good-natured sales and marketing reps from convertors around the country attended the workshops open mindedly and threw suggestions and ideas into the think-tank, with Tobela Tapula, manager for corporate & government affairs at Plastics/SA, being the conductor in chief.
And a lot of ideas were generated.
Let’s face it, comparatively few South African convertors have the skills necessary for trading into Africa. If you don’t have someone on your books who can freely travel to Lubumbashi, Kampala, Addis Ababa, Nairobi and you name it and sell well, then your best option would be to work with an established agency such as Safrique, which has the language abilities to operate smoothly in west or east Africa and the infrastructure to manage the contractual work, transport and logistics to handle cross-border business, not to speak of the need to have agents across these regions.
But, the DTI is now looking at ways to boost this activity and promote exports so the industry can achieve a positive trade balance. One of programmes will be to sponsor pavilions at trade shows and trade missions.