Johannesburg — Southern African Development Community
Mokonzi Import & Export is a trade and investment advisory firm. We help international companies enter South Africa and the wider SADC region the durable way — through regulatory approval, compliant procurement, and properly structured public-private partnerships.
The Firm
Southern Africa rewards companies that arrive prepared. The region has real, published demand — energy infrastructure, logistics, water, manufacturing inputs — and formal mechanisms for meeting it. What foreign entrants usually lack is not opportunity but orientation: which framework applies, which approvals come first, which local partners are credible, and how long things genuinely take.
Mokonzi exists to close that gap. We combine trade and regulatory expertise with an established network of vetted local professionals — counsel, empowerment partners, logistics operators, and sector specialists — so that our clients compete on the strength of their offer, inside the rules, from a position of preparation rather than improvisation.
Our clients are international manufacturers, technology providers, investors, and trade organisations whose boards require that African market entry be both commercially sound and defensible under scrutiny.
Services
Regulatory mapping, entity establishment, licensing, and local partner sourcing for companies entering South Africa. We structure B-BBEE-aligned ownership and operating models so that market entry is compliant from day one, not retrofitted later.
South Africa runs one of the most developed formal PPP frameworks on the continent, governed by National Treasury regulation under the PFMA and MFMA. We advise international sponsors on feasibility, structuring, and transaction support within those frameworks.
Selling to the South African state — national departments, municipalities, or state-owned entities — happens through formal, competitive tender processes. We prepare foreign suppliers to compete in them: registration, documentation, local content requirements, and credible bid responses.
Import and export execution across the region: customs, tariff classification, and route-to-market design under the SADC Protocol on Trade and the African Continental Free Trade Area. We turn trade agreements on paper into working supply chains.
Approach
A confidential, no-obligation conversation about your objectives in the region — what you sell, where you want to operate, and on what timeline.
A written market and regulatory assessment: the realistic pathway, the approvals and registrations required, the local partners needed, and the honest obstacles.
We design the entry structure — entity, ownership, partnerships, and compliance framework — and agree a defined scope of work with clear deliverables.
On-the-ground execution alongside vetted local counsel and specialists, through to operating status, a submitted bid, or a signed partnership.
Advisory work near the public sector demands more governance, not less. These commitments apply to every engagement, without exception.
Engagement with government happens through official, recorded processes — registered tenders, published PPP frameworks, and formal correspondence. We do not sell access to public officials, and we decline work that depends on it.
Our work is structured to keep clients compliant with South Africa’s Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act and with the extraterritorial regimes our clients answer to, including the U.S. FCPA and the UK Bribery Act.
Every engagement runs on a defined scope of work. Recommendations are delivered in writing, so boards, investment committees, and auditors can see exactly what was advised and why.
Regions
Primary market
The region’s most industrialised economy and our home base, with working presence across Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town — the commercial, administrative, and legislative centres.
Expansion corridor
Sixteen member states and a formal free-trade protocol. We support expansion into Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Mozambique through partners vetted on the ground.
Contact
Tell us what you are trying to achieve in the region. The first conversation is an honest assessment of whether — and how — it can be done, not a sales call.
Mokonzi Import & Export
Johannesburg, South Africa