Executive Forum 2001
Montreux, Switzerland
26-29 September 2001

Interviews

The participative method of trade promotion
Issa Benjamin Baguian, Director, Trade Point Burkina Faso.

I come from the Ministry of Trade and Industry, in particular the Burkina Export Promotion Office. Our job is to let our potential exports be known by the outside world. The main exports are cotton and gold. These two exports are well organized. They are run by big companies. We are trying to promote other products such as fruit and vegetables – green beans, mangoes, limes – and we are also exporting a certain number of cattle, naturally bred, without any use of chemicals in the feeding process. We are also exporting handicrafts. In 1984 Burkina organized a national fair to promote the handicraft sector. It was a real success. So we created the arts and craft show of Ougadougou to group all the African countries. It is held every two years. Now we even have visitors from the Philippines, Iran, the United States and France. It has become a showcase of handicrafts from Africa.

We have also been given the duty of promoting investment. We distribute information such as the new code of investment, the code of mining – everything that can attract investors to the country.

The Trade Point is one of our promotion tools. We set it up with the assistance of UNCTAD. Burkina Faso is a landlocked country. Sometimes we cannot even get to trade shows abroad. With the Trade Point we have set up a paperless meeting place for buyers and sellers around the world. Now we are promoting the Trade Point to our own companies to set up websites and provide them with e-mail. We surf the Net every day looking for information that might be of interest to our companies. It has even enabled us to forge a link with the American market, because a US company that visited our site came to Burkina, we organized a small exhibition in one of our rooms, and gave us a trial order of 35 million CFA. The products have already been delivered and the company is already signing new contracts with individual craftsmen. Without this experience, the craftsmen would never have believed they could go into the export market.

The biggest problem is that if we have an order, say for 500 masks, the buyer often wants them all to be the same, but that is sometimes difficult, because they are handmade. Also, the craftsmen are sometimes illiterate. To go into the international market is a big step. We are encouraging the exporters to go to the producers and work with them. We have organized the Group of Handicraft Exporters. If they have a big order, they share the order.

Yes. But sometimes people don’t understand the benefits of sharing. If you have an order for 500 baskets, it’s tempting to try to keep everything for yourself whereas if you share the order with five people you only get the revenue from 100. But it’s the best way to operate, because you still require only one set of documents if you work through the group and you can share the costs. The role of the Trade Promotion Office is to train people so that they understand the benefits. We have a training department for small things like legal terms relating to international trade. We are organizing a seminar on the condition of fruit for exports, how they should be packaged, what are the demands, etc. ITC has helped a let with training materials. There is now a project for an Export School in Burkina and make our exporters more and more professional. We are now looking for financing.

But we go to companies to find out what they want. This is what I call the participative method of organizing trade promotion. You have to adjust your activities according to their needs if you want them to participate.