The South African delegation on a trade mission to Brazil was receptioned in the city of Curitiba this past week by the local trade association (ACP) in partnership with the Federation of Industries in the State of Paraná (FIEP). The mission received the support of the consulate general of South Africa in São Paulo and the Department of Trade and Industry of South Africa, and was composed by delegates from the wine industry, energy, civil engineering, architecture and tourism sectors.
Many of the delegates, specialy from the construction sector, were involved in the preparation for the World Cup 2010 in South Africa, and had the goal of identifying business opportunities in Brazil in order to transfer know how for the preparation of the upcoming World Cup 2014. Juliana Michelon Alvarenga from Aldeota Global, accompained by Wagner Giovani Silva, a technology manager from SOCIESC, a regional educational institution for technology development, met with a couple of the companies during the business rounds.
During the first meeting with Mr Fumani Dlomu, the director for Avuxeni Construction CC, a company from Highveld that provides electrical engineering services, the subject addressed was the solar energy market in SouthAfrica. According to Mr Dlomu, the sector is expanding and continuous growth is foreseen specially for low income housing programs. The equipment is today imported from China and specially Korea, being the later the equipments with better efficiency than chinese solar technology. He also mentioned that it is very promising to promote transfer of technology to South Africa. Aldeota Global also presented information on the Ex-Im Bank financing alternatives for importing US solar energy systems into Africa.
The last meeting was with The Western Cape Investment and Trade Promotion Agency of South Africa (WESGRO). The head of international trade and development, Mrs Seanne Kube, mentioned her concerns about how tough the Brazilian market is when in their attempts to conquer market share with the South African products. She also spoke about the well developed medicine technology capacity of the country and how the first open heart transplant was sucessfully executed in South Africa.
Aldeota Global also presented a pac to the members of the delegation with a document containing the highlights from the study recently published by The World Bank in partnership with IPEA, the Institute of Applied Economic Research, entitled Bridging the Atlantic, Brazil and Sub-Saharan Africa: South-south partnership for growth. The highlights were on the investment and economic complementarities between Brazil and African countries.
Aldeota Global 