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Pravin Gordhan, Minister of Finance. Photo: Matthew Jordaan.

There are many areas of the South Africa economy in which oligopolists operate, according to Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.

“There are too few firms that are far too dominant. It's a very well-known fact. Very few people talk about it because it's not kosher. But let's put it on the table,” he said.

The finance minister was speaking at an I-Net Bridge/BusinessLIVE breakfast, joined by George Glynos, a strategist at Econometrix, and Isaac Matshego, an economist at Nedbank.

He added that there were imbalances in the South African economy.

“We need to talk about how we really create space for small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) to grow - how many big business people in SA are allowing the small people to get opportunities?” asked Gordhan.

Earlier this year, during his Budget speech, the minister said that small businesses were an important source of jobs and that businesses that employed fewer than 50 employees accounted for 68% of private sector employment.

On Monday, the minister stressed that productivity and competitive issues needed to be tackled and that 70% of the economy was controlled by the private sector.

“SA firms shouldn't only be looking inwardly and saying, how do I stay comfortable within this space I found myself in,” he stressed.

The minster added that government certainly had its role to play.

“I think we need to do a lot more for our logistics infrastructure to be more efficient. We need to do a lot better to drop the red tape ... we've been too slow at removing constraints on small businesses, and we've been pathetic in terms of helping small businesses to become more dynamic within our own context as well,” he said.

Also on Monday, Gordhan called on the private sector, entrepreneurs and South Africans to “tackle the issue of growth and jobs”.

The government announced that SA would have to grow in excess of 7% a year in order to tackle unemployment and poverty.

“We remain optimists. There is still room for the optimism I speak of,” the minister said.

He added that South Africans needed to take a “glass half-full” perspective. - I-Net Bridge