Johannesburg – The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)
says it has put aside R15 billion for sustainable growth and job creation.
In a statement issued late on Wednesday, DG Lionel
October says this amount has been set aside for projected investments across
all incentives to achieve sustainable growth and job creation
October was briefing the Portfolio Committee on Trade and
Industry on the key planned interventions by the department in Parliament.
October
says the department’s target, as well as the entire budget for the new
financial year, will be spent trying to industrialise the country and broaden
the manufacturing sector as well as support businesses that have globally
competitive niche in the continent.
“The
projected number of new jobs to be supported and number of jobs to be retained
from enterprises is set at 6 000 while 800 projects have been approved through
our incentives schemes to support enterprises in different sectors of the
economy,” says October.
October
told Members of Parliament that the number of jobs might increase due to the
upstream and downstream of jobs created in the manufacturing sector. He says it
is well-known that for every one job created in the manufacturing sector, four
other jobs are created indirectly.
However,
that figure might go up to 24 000, in addition to the 6 000 jobs initially
targeted, he says.
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October says government manufacturing incentives, localisation
and designation continue to strengthen the economy despite the negative global
and domestic trading condition of South Africa’s products.
“The
other biggest problem facing the economy is still the demand for our products
and services. Our factories are not running at full capacity at the moment and
the majority of these are faced with the decline of procurement from our own
state-owned enterprises which have reduced their orders significantly especially
in the locomotive sector,” he said.
October notes
overall South African demand for goods from Africa also decreased by 7 percent
in the last quarter of 2017 to R28 billion from R30 billion in the third
quarter of the same year.
He said,
even though the Southern African Development Community remained one of the
biggest market for South African manufactured goods in Africa – accounting for
almost 88 percent of total manufactured exports to Africa – a lot still needs
to be done to target the rest of the continent.
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