New proposal to reduce communication costs

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Cape Town – Telecommunications and Postal Services Minister Siyabonga Cwele says new proposals have been put forward with the aim of lowering the cost to communicate in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.

Leading a briefing of the International Cooperation, Trade and Security Cluster on Sunday, the Minister said the proposals emanated from a recent SADC meeting of ICT Ministers in Malawi.

Locally, reducing the cost to communicate remains central to the country’s broadband policy.

The Minister said the Malawi meeting focused on roaming charges.

“The meeting adopted the Roam Like At Home programme, which will see the implementation of wholesale and retail glide paths effective from this year.

“The progressive glide path to cost-based roaming tariffs will be applied through fee reductions by a factor of 67%, 33% and 5% over the next three years.

“With these implemented reductions, consumers and citizens in the regions will connect to one another cheaper and this will also contribute to more affordable broadband access,” he said.

The Minister said, meanwhile, that South Africa continued to broaden market integration through the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) negotiations among 26 countries of East and Southern Africa.

The TFTA was initiated in 2008 after years of dreaming and anticipation to make it easier for member countries to access each other’s markets through the creation of a large trade network from Cape to Cairo.

Minister Cwele said the TFTA is expected to create a market of 625 million people and a gross domestic product (GDP) of $1.2 trillion.

“We expect to take these negotiations further in a Summit of Heads of State scheduled for May 2015,” the Minister said.

Tourism sector grows, leads in job creation

Minister Cwele said South Africa has received over 3.8 million foreign visitors through the arrivals terminals, thus generating a R20.3 billion revenue contribution to the economy.

He said the tourism industry remained a major contributor to the South African economic growth, jobs and employment.

“This shows that on-going efforts to showcase our country as a tourist, investment and destination of choice are bearing much needed fruits during this low global economic outlook,” he said.

Minister Cwele said the tourism sector’s contribution to the GDP has expanded by 200% since 1990.

“Tourism directly represents 3% of our GDP and supports over 617 000 jobs. Including indirect impacts, tourism generated 9.7% of the GDP and supported over 1.4 million jobs last year,” the Minister said.

As South Africa guns towards being one of the top 20 global tourist destinations by 2020, the Minister said there was great potential for growth.

“Our marketing investment strikes a balance between growth in domestic, regional African and long-haul tourism, between traditional and emerging source markets, and between leisure, business and events tourism.

“In September, SA Tourism opened a country office in Sao Paolo, Brazil, to serve the growing markets in Latin America,” he said.

The Minister said domestic marketing campaigns were being stepped up to get locals to explore their own country.

He said over the past five months, much work has gone into planning to improve infrastructure that will enhance the country’s destination offerings to visitors. – SAnews.gov.za