South African companies pleased with trade leads obtained from the DRC
Most of the South African companies that were funded by the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) to participate in the 15th edition of the DRC Mining Week exhibition that took place in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo say it has produced good trade leads and tangible results for them.
The Managing Director of Power Plant Electrical Technologies, Mr Shawn Shanahan says the exhibition created good trade leads for his company from meetings that he held with potential buyers and clients.
“There are new opportunities opening up with other mining groups that we must take advantage of. We should also look at expanding these platforms to other areas like Kolwezi where there are daily mining activities that can benefit a lot of companies back home,” said Shanahan.
The representative of Carsin Engineering, Mr Ian Carr says the exhibition was good for the company in that they were able to gather good market intelligence.
“We had a meeting with a mining company that may be of good value to us. What we also realised is that there are no other mild steel tubing companies operating in the area,” says Carr.
The Senior Engineer for Moser Engineering, Mr Maarifa Kidoge says It is very important for South African companies to keep marketing their products in the DRC in order to take advantage of all the developments that are currently taking place in the mining industry there.
South Africa’s Foreign Economic Representative to the DRC, Mr Siphamandla Kumkani said there were a lot of positives that could be drawn from the DRC Mining Week. He was also impressed by the impressive amount of appetite from the Congolese companies to work with South African companies.
“The South African Exhibitors were very busy throughout the event and we expect an increase on the number of bankable trade leads from this part of the DRC. Further, it is also expected that a number of exhibitors might increase by a bigger margin when the event is held next year,” he said.
