Trade Promotion Agencies have an essential role in driving green trade competitiveness.

Wesgro, the official Tourism, Trade and Investment Promotion Agency for Cape Town and the Western Cape, has identified several actions to strengthen its service offering to support, promote, and facilitate greener exports from the Western Cape.

In this case study, Wesgro presents initiatives piloted to promote and develop exports during the Covid-19 pandemic and explores the application of learnings to green trade competitiveness and resilience. Using Wesgro as an example, this analysis explores ways in which Trade Promotion Agencies can expand upon their service offerings to provide better support to exporters, in particular SMMEs, to build resilience, adjust to changing consumer and market demands, and take advantage of emerging green economy opportunities.

This includes, on the one hand, supporting existing exporters to “green” their value chains, and on the other hand, expanding the Agency’s service offering to exporters and potential exporters operating in the green economy. In particular it also looks at ways to support green SMMEs in building international relationships to secure trade opportunities.

This case study forms part of a larger project, led by GreenCape and funded by the EU, aimed at providing support for local Green SMMEs to understand opportunities in the EU Green Deal. Project partners included Wesgro, Tralac, TIPS, Trade Advisory and the International Cleantech Network. The full set of documents published as part of this project is available here.