Apprentice Industries (APPI)
APPI companies are businesses in the value chain in the creation of our daily basic needs (i.e. water, food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, sanitation, and education).
APPI is an industrial processing and manufacturing conglomerate focused on the regional integration of manufacturing in Southern Africa to compete effectively with global producers – both domestically and internationally.
On the back of regional integration, Southern African manufacturing companies would be able to compete with heavily subsidized overseas producers and promote regional manufacturing through the export of competitive goods and local consumption of regionally manufactured goods.
The word apprentice comes from the Old French aprentiz meaning “someone learning”. An apprentice is someone in a state of learning from a master in a field.
As a group we have two primary objectives:
1: Reduce the reliance on imports into the SADC region.
2: Increase the export competitiveness of regionally manufactured goods.
Southern Africa is unusually dependent on exports of energy and mineral products (fortunes linked to commodity price cycles) and excluding South Africa, only 5% of regional exports are manufactured, while energy and minerals contribute 85% and agriculture 10% to total exports.
”If we truly want to grow and innovate we have to be open to different ideas
Charles Koch