PORT OF CONSTANȚA, A COMMERCIAL HUB FOR SOUTH AFRICAN COMPANIES

By Jerom Bolt
The President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania (CCIR), Mihai Daraban, met on Thursday, September 2, with the Deputy Minister of the Department of Relations and Cooperation of South Africa, Mr. Alvin Botes, on an official visit to Romania.
During this meeting, topics of major interest for the business environment in Romania and South Africa were addressed and the optimal lines of collaboration were identified so that the volume of trade between the two countries to increase in the medium and long term.
“The port of Constanța can become a logistics hub for South African operators, serving Romania and the entire region. From our point of view, maritime transport is the most viable solution in terms of intensifying trade between Romania and South Africa. At the level of the Port of Constanța, the activities are carried out by private port operators, but the port administration can offer for concession large plots of land from the same premises. At the same time, the Port of Constanța has a storage capacity of 5 million tons of iron ore, which is an opportunity for South African producers to create stocks in the free zone of the port in order to faster serve the demand for such material. first in Romania and not only “, said the president of CCIR, Mr. Mihai Daraban.
“Currently, South Africa is recalibrating economic diplomacy because as of January 1, 2021, the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) entered into force, a document that can broaden the perspective of bilateral cooperation. South Africa thus becomes a suitable destination for investors seeking to grow their business on the African continent, thus being able to access the facilities offered by the agreement. Our government intends to develop a new port in the south-east of South Africa, so that the maritime and naval field will become extremely important in terms of cooperation between the two states, “said the deputy minister of relations. and cooperation of South Africa, Mr. Alvin Boots.
According to ONRC data, the total value of the Romania-South Africa trade was 168.92 million euros at the end of last year and over 45 million euros at the end of March 2021. At the level of August 2021, in Romania there were a number of active 51 South African companies, with a total value of the subscribed share capital of 5.2 million euros.