Market Scene : New ‘Gold Rush’ to S. Africa : Hundreds of foreign companies flock to the nation’s first trade fair since sanctions ended.

When black leader Nelson Mandela went before the United Nations on Sept. 24 and urged the world to finally dismantle diplomatic and economic sanctions imposed on South Africa, he pleaded for an end to the crippling isolation “without delay.”

Judging from a burst of foreign interest in doing business here, Mandela’s plea seems to be bearing fruit. The latest example: South Africa’s first post-sanctions international trade fair, which opened in a huge Johannesburg exhibition hall last week with more than 600 companies and business delegations from scores of countries.

“We’re not sure if it’s 56 or 57 because we had a new country, Bulgaria, that only arrived last night,” said spokeswoman Lesley Perkes. “There’s been a massive rush since the end of sanctions.”

Surprisingly, Perkes added, foreign companies hoping to buy and sell here far outnumbered South African firms at the five-day fair. “Local businessmen aren’t as optimistic about South Africa as people overseas,” she explained. “We’re much more pessimistic.”

But no one expects an instant financial bonanza now that the United States and other countries have begun unraveling the anti-apartheid embargoes and bans they clamped on in the mid-1980s. Most investors--including South Africans--are still wary of the massive unemployment, political instability and staggering levels of violence as the white-ruled country moves painfully toward its first democratic elections next April and black-majority rule thereafter. Most of the early crowds at last week’s fair, for example, steered wide of a brightly lit booth set up to lure businesses into an area known as the Vaal Triangle. Despite the stall’s glossy pictures of rolling hills and roaring steel mills, the region, 35 miles south of Johannesburg, is known best now for a daily death toll from vicious tit-for-tat attacks in its black townships.

“It makes our job harder,” conceded Bets Booyens, who helped run the Vaal Triangle stall. “The media promotes the violence, not the good things.”

Even Collin Wright, Johannesburg’s head of commerce and industry, an ever-optimistic civic booster who says his goal is to bring the Olympics here in 2004, admits that selling his nation’s new image isn’t always easy. “People aren’t exactly jumping to buy South African goods,” he said.

But for exhibitors at last week’s show--hoping to sell everything from Belgian beer and Indonesian batik to Moroccan leather and Finnish saunas--there are clear opportunities in Africa’s richest and most promising market.

India, for example, still has no embassy in Pretoria. But it sent the largest trade delegation to the fair--32 companies and about 500 people, many of them flying in on Air India’s inaugural flight from Bombay. That made it the 37th international airline to begin flying here in the last three years.

“Before now, South Africa would not issue us a visa . . . ,” said Bombay businessman Ramu Desai. “So this is our first time. But we are very optimistic. This is a good market for us.”

Canada, a leader in the fight against apartheid, has already opened a trade office in Johannesburg. Nine Canadian companies were represented at the fair.

“We had to move on very short notice,” said Eric Brown, a government trade official who flew in from Ottawa. “We came to size up the market and see what the opportunities are.”

“I don’t think after this we will get a lot of tourists from South Africa,” said Gyorgy Kornis, marketing manager for Hungary’s Pannonia Hotels. “But just in case someone comes to Hungary or Eastern Europe, I want them to know we are there.”

The diplomatic front is also busy. China, which broke off ties in 1960, is to resume trade and re-establish formal diplomatic relations. India, which withdrew its ambassador in 1948, plans to send another. Egypt will open an embassy next year as well. Other African countries are expected to follow.

The pace is a little dizzying to locals unaccustomed to such favorable attention. Len van Zyl, head of South Africa’s Foreign Trade Organization, cut short an interview to rush to three back-to-back cocktail parties for visiting delegations from Finland, France and the United Arab Emirates.

“All of them are coming to open trade missions,” Van Zyl said. He, in turn, leaves next month for the United States to plan South Africa’s first American trade fair, probably next fall in New York after smaller conferences in Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston.

No American companies were at the fair, mostly because about 200 showed up at a “Made in the USA” fair last month. Other companies, including Pepsi, IBM, McDonald’s and Levi Strauss, have sent scouting missions. And President Clinton has announced he will send a delegation led by Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown to explore business opportunities here.

Clinton has also urged those who have shunned the country--private companies, investment fund managers, universities and others--to invest here and aid the transition to democracy.

Those who come may be surprised to find the country already awash in familiar consumer goods. The sting of trade sanctions was always muted in a country rich with gold and diamonds. Some major companies, like Colgate-Palmolive and ITT, never left. Others, like Coca-Cola and Goldstar, operated through local partners or franchise agents. And others have quietly slipped back in as South Africa’s former infamy has waned.

As a result, roads are clogged with Fords and BMWs; supermarkets stock Kellogg cereals and M&M; candies, and families flock to Pizza Huts and Toys R Us. Indeed, America has regained its pre-sanctions position as South Africa’s chief trading partner.

Many of those at the fair cheerfully admitted evading sanctions through backdoor deals, or by paying a premium to middlemen.

Thailand’s C. P. Intertrade Co., which hopes to sell rice, frozen shrimp and other foodstuffs here, did business before through a front company in Singapore. “This is the first time we come openly,” said company Vice President Pornchai Kanokvilairatana.

“We had illegal, third-country trade before,” agreed Tauheed Jan, commerce secretary from Pakistan’s liaison office. “Now we think it’s going to pick up a lot.”