Staff Reporter
WINDHOEK - The Namibian ambassador to The Netherlands has welcomed the Dutch business community to come and invest in Namibia. “Our embassy would like to organise a large business delegation from The Netherlands, so they can have Business-to-Business meetings in Namibia,” Ambassador Kaire Mbuende said, during the “Doing Business in Namibia” seminar. The seminar was organised in the Dutch city of The Hague by the Netherlands-African Business Council (NABC) and the Netherlands Namibia Trade and Investment Forum (NNTIF) in close collaboration with the Embassy of Namibia in Brussels.
The Netherlands Namibia Trade and Investment Forum is a recent initiative of the Honorary Consul of the Netherlands in Namibia, Servaas van den Bosch, his predecessor and previous Honorary Consuls of the Netherlands in Namibia, Ger Kegge and Honorary Consul of Namibia in the Netherlands, Cornélie van Waegeningh. NNTIF aspires to strengthen trade and investment relations between the two countries and offers support services to companies for market access.
The half-day event, which hosted speakers from the Namibian Embassy, as well as Netherlands entrepreneurs already active in Namibia or planning to be, and Namibia’s Meatco, was attended by roughly 40 entrepreneurs. Upon the opening speeches, Namibia’s Commercial Councillor, Diana Kuiri Tjiposa, kick-started the discussions with a presentation on trade and investment opportunities in Namibia, which was followed by lively exchange of information between participants.
“Although Namibia may be considered as a small country, it has great potential to be used as the gateway to the rest of the SADC and African region due to its location. We at NABC see that there is quite a number of interesting business opportunities,” said Peter de Ruiter, the Managing Director of NABC. “NNTIF decided to focus this forum on trade and investment opportunities on those sectors where the Netherlands business community could have competitive advantages and in which there could be a demand in Namibia,” said Ger Kegge, one of the founding members of NNTIF. This pertained to agri-food sector, in particular marketing meat, smart horticulture, and value-added fish processing and marketing, to service delivery, in particular tourism and logistics, and to IT, in particular data processing and automation.
Ambassador Mbuende added that: “The Netherlands is renowned for its agro food, but also has an excellent reputation when it comes to water management and energy, including renewable. Meanwhile, in Namibia we have trade and investment opportunities in nearly every sector.”
NABC represents a group of 350 Dutch member companies that do business with Africa. It organises trade missions to African countries and receives incoming trade delegations. Their main aim is to stimulate trade between Africa and The Netherlands.