EZULWINI – EIPA has launched two digital intelligence tools designed to give investors, exporters, businesses and policymakers easier access to information needed to identify opportunities and make informed economic decisions.
The Eswatini Investment Attractiveness Dashboard and Market Intelligence Dashboard were officially launched by Minister for Commerce, Industry and Trade Manqoba Khumalo at the Royal Villas in Ezulwini on Friday. The tools were developed by the International Trade Centre (ITC), in partnership with Eswatini Investment Promotion Authority EIPA, with financial support from the European Union (EU).
Khumalo said the launch represented an important development in strengthening Eswatini’s ability to pursue trade and investment-led economic growth, stressing that information and access to reliable information had become fundamental economic assets in the modern economy. He said the ability to access, interpret and act on credible information could influence whether a business pursued a legitimate opportunity, whether an investor selected Eswatini over another destination and whether an exporter successfully entered a foreign market.
“It can determine whether government designs policies based on evidence or operates with incomplete information,” Khumalo said.
He said the tools were, therefore, important to the ministry’s mandate of creating an enabling environment for business and industry, creating trade opportunities, enhancing export competitiveness and attracting, facilitating and promoting investment.
Khumalo said the Investment Attractiveness Dashboard brought together economic, trade, investment and business-environment indicators to support the assessment and promotion of Eswatini’s investment potential.
For government, he said, the dashboard would strengthen the evidence base used in investment promotion efforts and help identify areas of opportunity, while providing investors with an accessible way of understanding the country’s investment environment.
For EIPA, the tool would provide an additional instrument for engaging investors, while potential investors would have easier access to information relevant to their investment decisions.
The second platform, the Market Intelligence Dashboard, provides practical market information and access to selected ITC tools and resources to assist businesses in exploring international markets, identifying opportunities and understanding market requirements.
Khumalo said this was particularly important for exporters as Eswatini needed to become more deliberate in identifying where demand existed and matching that demand with products and services that local businesses could competitively supply. He said businesses should increasingly move beyond simply asking what they could export and instead ask where there was demand for what they produced, which markets offered potential, what requirements needed to be met, who potential buyers were and what conditions governed market access.
“These are much more commercially useful questions and the more effectively we can answer them, the better positioned our businesses are to make informed decisions,” he said.
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