The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the country’s largest business organization, will exploit trade opportunities in emerging countries as a result of a shift in trade focus by South Africa from Europe to Asia, chamber president Alfredo Yao said over the weekend.
Members of the chamber explored the potentials of increased bilateral trade with South Africa during a visit by Ambassador Martinus Niccolas Slabber. Ralph Lim Joseph, chairman of the Philippines-Southern Africa Business Councils, accompanied the envoy.
Yao said renewing a memorandum of agreement with the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry could strengthen a strategic partnership between the PCCI and the private sector of South Africa.
South African businessmen, he said, could shift their investments to qualify for the tariff-free entry to the integrated economies of the Association of Southeast Asian nations and gain access to the region’s 600 million consumers, many of them belonging to middle-income households with increasing purchasing power.
PCCI and its South African counterpart reviewed the possibility of sending trade missions to improve bilateral trade relations, with the revival of a cooperation agreement necessary to facilitate the exchange of visits and planning of activities.
The agreement may also urge lead counterpart economic councils to actively pursue the implementation of trade issues.
Slabber said he would discuss with the South Africa Chamber of Commerce and Industry a draft memorandum of agreement to re-start bilateral efforts for increased trade.
He said South Africa began looking east or at Asian countries with high economic growth rates two years ago.
The Philippine Statistics Authority reported that Philippine exports to South Africa amounted to $55 million in 2013 against imports of $273 million.