the dti to Honour Its Promise to Vhembe Businesspeople |
| The Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) will honour its promise to the businesspeople of the Vhembe District Municipality in Limpopo when it hosts two export awareness seminar in the district next week. The first seminar will be held at the Nwanedi Agricultural Office in Madimbo in Musina on 14 August 2019, while the second will take place at the offices of the Limpopo Economic Development Agency (Leda) in Thohoyandou on 15 August 2019.
In November last year, the then Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Bulelani Magwanishe announced at the Vhembe SMME Summit in Thohoyandou that the dti would provide training for the Vhembe businesspeople under its National Exporter Development Programme to equip them with knowledge and skills that they require to export their products and services to international markets. The more than 120 companies which will attend the two seminars, most whom are small and medium enteprises, will get an opportunity to learn about various aspects of the export market. These include export processes, benefits of exporting, role-players within the export value-chain, export readiness and competitiveness, pricing of products for export market, and the export documentation. The information is expected to empower them, and enable them to expand the market of their products beyond the borders of South Africa. the dti has been organising export awareness seminars in all the provinces since 2006. The purpose of seminars is to raise the level of export awareness amongst entrepreneurs, nationally with the aim of promoting the export culture by equipping small and medium enterprises with the right knowledge, information and skills. More than a thousand companies participated in the seminars across the country in the last financial year, and more than 30 workshops will be organised during the course of this financial year. According to the new Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Nomalungelo Gina, the seminars are part of the department’s National Exporter Development Programme (NEDP). Its purpose is to develop exporters who will contribute in increasing value-added exports which contribute to employment creation. “It is important that we develop a pool of export-ready companies in order to increase the country’s export basket, grow the economy, create employment and contribute in achieving economic transformation. As we support various sectors of our economy through our Industrial Policy Action Plan interventions, it is important that we provide our entrepreneurs with the right knowledge and skills in order to enable them to open new-acquired international markets for their products and services. Establishing new markets will assist these companies to increase their production and labour force to service the new markets, thereby contributing in creating employment opportunities and growing the economy,” says Gina. She adds that the seminars will also help in increasing the number of export-ready companies that the department funds to participate in international trade missions and exhibitions. The department plans to support more than 800 companies through its Export Marketing and Investment Assistant Scheme to search for global export markets for their manufactured products.
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