R15bn set aside for job creation

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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