Durban - A “Buy local” campaign is about to launched by the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
It will form part of the ongoing fight for economic growth and the creation of millions of jobs, which should be treated as a war, Akash Singh, the president of the chamber, said at the organisation’s Exporter of the Year event at the ICC last week.
“You – businesses and employees – are the army that’s going to make this victory possible,” Singh told the gala evening, which saluted successful exporting companies.
The “Bring Back our Jobs and Growth Campaign”, which will be launched later this month, will involve individuals as well as businesses checking up on the local content of goods they buy and produce.
“People will be encouraged to look inside to see the local content of the clothes they put on their back,” Singh said.
“The campaign is to make people more aware about local content, and is also to get businesses to drive more local content. The idea is that every six to 12 months, those companies which have improved their local content will be recognised by the Chamber,” he explained yesterday.
Other ideas in the fight for growth and jobs is to get businesses to take a more proactive role in the economy, and “not pay lip service,” he told guests.
Another plan will be to leverage 20 successful family businesses to mentor emerging entrepreneurs and thus boost growth.
The 14th Exporter of the Year event is backed by the main sponsor, Transnet Port Terminals (TNP), and the chief executive, Karl Socikwa, told the packed audience that the country needed more entrepreneurs and more exporters.
People who were willing to invest now were the ones who would reap the benefits when the economy picked up, he said.
Socikwa said in the 2013/14 financial year, TPT had a procurement spend of R3.2 billion, of which R2bn was spent in KZN, he said.
“The province also accounted for almost 60 percent of BEE procurement spend during the same period, or R1.7bn out of R2.9bn.” - Daily News