Teboho Price Monahadi from Archi M Studio in Johannesburg
Teboho Price Monahadi clinched a promising deal with a big Nigerian company and hails the recent outward selling trade mission to Nigeria as “historic”.
The aim of the mission, which was the first to that country, was to promote South African exports into Nigerian markets, and Nigerian exports into South African markets.
“South Africa is the first, biggest economic giant in Africa, and Nigeria is second.
Nigeria has always wanted an opportunity to put its footprint in South Africa,” says Monahadi, executive director of Archi M Studio in Johannesburg.
The deal Monahadi is working on will concentrate on social housing and hotel development. “We are now in a process of registering a joint venture through our lawyers and we intend to invest in the development of a hotel in Nigeria. We also intend to propose a new airport to the Nigerian government, which will be our next big operation,” says Monahadi.
Archi M’s core business is to provide turnkey solutions to infrastructure. Their main focus is on the mining, manufacturing, agricultural, energy and power sectors.
The company began 20 years ago, concentrating on architectural services. For the past six years, the company has developed to a point where they are able to take you from the beginning stages of your project until the end.
Monahadi says, “If you want a hospital built, we do everything. From the design, to the project management and the actual building of the hospital.”
This trade mission has been the third for farmer, Pitso Sekhoto, from the Free State.
He has been to trade missions in China and Germany over the past two years.
Sekhoto landed a deal whereby he exports 30 tons of apples every two weeks.
“The plan is to supply them with 120 containers of approximately 1 800 boxes of apples. Sekhoto estimates this will result in monetary value of around $ 7000 to $ 8000 (about R70 000 to R80 000) per ton of apples exported.
Sekhoto began farming in 2008 after leaving the corporate world after 25 years. He is also head of the Farmers Union in the Free State.
He says: “My interest in farming stems from my father. He was involved in the buying and selling of cattle, sheep and pigs.”
Sekhoto supplies milk to Woolworths and also deals in apples, sheep, cattle, sunflower and maize. He learnt of this trade mission to Nigeria during his last mission to China.
Zanele Sanini, of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and director of export and promotions for Africa market, says the aim was also to look for possible joint ventures between South Africa and Nigeria.
“We achieved more than the expected goal and a few participants managed to get deals and possible joint collaborations.”
- For more information, go to www.dti.gov.za