The Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board (NIPDB) has finalised the deployment of five Investment and Export Promotion attachés (IEPA) to strategically-selected markets.
This follows the development of the Foreign Representation Framework (FRF), which provides the guiding principles for foreign representation deployment, and enables the board to implement results-driven investment promotion, attraction and facilitation.
NIPDB CEO Nangula Uaandja said to effectively execute its mandate of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) attraction, the board has been developing investor-focused marketing tools which will ensure consistency and performance.
“The NIPDB intends to take a more direct and targeted approach to investment attraction.
The attachés will be supported by a technical team, who will provide market intelligence that will allow them to target investors in key sectors.
This will enable us to target the type of investor we would want to attract to Namibia”, she added.
According to an NIPDB statement, the five attachés will assume a regional market representation responsibility, and play an oversight role for locally-recruited staff and other stakeholders in other countries in their regions to maximise the utilisation of limited resources.
The attachés, who assume their duties on 1 September 2022, will represent the NIPDB in sub-Saharan Africa (Pretoria), Middle East & North Africa (Cairo), Europe (London), Asia Pacific (Beijing) and the Americas (New York).
Until 2021, the deployment of commercial counsellors who focus on all commercial functions was a function undertaken by the trade ministry. Then, commercial counsellors were posted to various countries with the objective of creating brand awareness for Namibia in foreign markets, generating FDI leads, increasing and improving trade activities between Namibia and those countries, as well as exploring new and expanding existing export markets.
The attaché postings are aligned with the general provisions of the Foreign Service Rules administered by the international relations and cooperation ministry, and were developed in consultation with the trade and international relations ministries. With the NIPDB assuming the role of Namibia’s Investment Promotion Agency (IPA), overseeing the deployment of investment-focused attachés now forms part of the Board’s mandate, which necessitated the development of the FRF.
The framework sets clear criteria for IEPA recruitment processes, the formulation of IEPA Terms of Reference and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) as well as
operational and administrative matters. The FRF will be reviewed periodically, based on new developments and trends.
Meanwhile, the NIPDB emphasised that it is cognisant of the important role that diplomatic missions play in investment promotion and attraction.
Accordingly, as part of their stakeholder engagement strategy, the Board has hosted regular information-sharing sessions with Namibian diplomatic missions on investment and trade promotion to support the missions’ efforts of facilitating economic diplomacy.