South Africa is ready to do business with Peru. This is the terse message that the South African Ambassador to Peru, Ms Rachel Rasmeni delivered to Peruvian and South African businesspeople in Peru. The occasion was the South Africa-Peru Trade and Investment Seminar that was hosted by the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) in partnership with the Lima Chamber of Commerce in Lima. 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.
‘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.
She added that the mission presented 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,” added Rasmeni.
She assured the Peruvian businesspeople that SA was on a path of economic renewal which included improving its investment environment through a clear economic programme and plan.
As most of the companies attending the seminar were in the mining and agro-processing sectors, she assured potential investors that the South African government had prudentially embarked on an agricultural land reform process and the transformation of the mining industry in a way that new investment opportunities will be created.
The President of the Lima Chamber of Commerce, Ms Yolanda Torriani and the Director of Economic Promotion in the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also addressed the seminar. They respectively emphasised the importance of business-to-business collaboration and government-to-government cooperation in stimulating trade and investment between South Africa and Peru. They indicated that more could 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.
