Businessman Ladu Lukak and lawmaker Willison Lodiong speaking to reporters after a meeting on challenges affecting traders in the country/Photo@Eye Radio/12.05.2022

An official in the Chamber of Commerce has raised concerns that the country’s traders are blocked from accessing the international market.

Ladu Lukak, who is the First Deputy of the Chamber of Commerce, Agriculture and Industry said some foreign traders are deliberately blocking the national traders from reaching the international market.

Lukak said the alleged foreigners have positioned themselves as middlemen between suppliers and the South Sudanese traders.

“We have talked a lot about this fact, which is that the Chinese do not deal with traders in South Sudan,” Lukak told Eye Radio.
 
According to him, the lack of access to the international market has resulted in the importation of substandard goods which are unfit for human consumption.

“Even most of the goods that enter the country are brought through and traders go to buy them from there. In order for our traders to go to China to buy their goods, they refuse them,” said Lukak.

He also told Eye Radio the meeting was conducted to tackle challenges facing business persons in South Sudan.

Responding to the issue, a member of the National Parliament said the government plans to support national traders in their quest to have unimpeded access to the world market.

Willison Lodiong Sebit who is the Chairperson of the Specialized Committee on Trade, Industry and Investment said the government will coordinate with foreign missions to help resolve the issue.

“We explored ways on how South Sudan Nationals will import goods from china. We have been working hard to make sure that the trader of South Sudan improves in all aspects,” said Lodiong.

“We discovered that some foreigners are dealing directly with Chinese. So we try to explore that way so our traders can be an introduction to chines.

They can be helped by our ambassador in china who can assist the product from China directly without the middle-men because our aim is to improve the livelihood of the traders in South Sudan,” he added.
 
According to the national custom data of 2019, South Sudan ranked as the world’s largest importer country, at 186th.

However, the National Bureau of Standard, a body tasked to provide a legal framework for the standardization of commodities, has warned on several occasions that the country is importing substandard goods.