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Mission seeks to explore South African market

  April 10, 2012. Category: exporter

An Indonesian trade mission led by Deputy Trade Minister Bayu Krisnamurthi will explore business opportunities in South Africa — home to 48 million people — from April 9 to 14 as part of the government’s market diversification to nontraditional export destinations.

The Trade Ministry’s national export development director general, Gusmardi Bustami, said on Sunday that South Africa, which was home to a significant number of Indonesian and Malay descendants, offered a huge potential for Indonesian exports in the future.

“We want to build more intensified contacts. Our target is to introduce Indonesian products to Indonesian and Malay descendants there,” he told The Jakarta Post in a telephone interview.

As scheduled, the trade mission’s 14 delegates will visit South Africa’s major cities of Cape Town and Durban, where they will meet businesspeople in forums and one-on-one meetings with their counterparts.

Companies participating in the Indonesian delegates include representatives from Indonesia Exim Bank, PT Aneka Coffee Industry, PT Asia Pulp and Paper, PT Gajah Tunggal, PT Garuda Food Putra Putri Jaya, PT Prasidha Aneka Niaga, PT Sandratex.

Although the Trade Ministry had yet to set up talks on a preferential trade agreement (PTA) with its South African counterpart, such an arrangement, which would boost bilateral trade by reducing tariffs of certain items, could be made and discussed later, Gusmardi added.

Bilateral trade between Indonesia and South Africa totaled US$2.1 billion in 2011, up 78.9 percent from a year earlier. Indonesia exported $1.4 billion worth of goods to the country last year, while importing around $705.7 million, generating a $730.8 million trade surplus.

South Africa, a member of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) regional economic bloc, has a gross domestic product (GDP) of $366.2 billion with an annual growth rate of 3.2 percent and per capita GDP of $7,249 per year. It also serves as a gateway to the 15-member SADC with a total population of 258 million and total GDP of $471 billion, as well as an entry point to the five-member South African Custom Union (SACU).

Gusmardi said that the Indonesian export products could be boosted to the African market, including South Africa, included palm oil, rubber, vehicles and automotive parts, tea, coffee, cocoa, paper, textiles and textile products, shoes and footwear, furniture, handicrafts, medicine and health products and food and beverages.

Indonesian firms also have huge opportunities to invest in South Africa in a wide array of sectors covering infrastructure, property, paper making, food processing, packaging, sea freight forwarding, and the health industry, he said.
Source www.thejakartapost.com, accessed on April 10th 2012