Cape Town - Government has committed R2.69 billion over three years to assist the automotive sector and will work towards cracking down on illegal imports, piracy and illicit activities.
Briefing journalists in Parliament today, Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti, who chairs the government's cluster on economic sectors and employment, detailed several investments the government had already made, adding that government's overhaul of the procurement system was close to conclusion.
He said investments would target the development of infrastructure - particularly in transport and energy projects, manufacturing, agriculture, tourism, mining and the green economy to create more jobs.
Government's investments in the automotive sector had helped secure R13 billion in investments and had resulted in 24 000 jobs (worth R4 billion, and 21 000 jobs in component manufacturers) being saved or created, Nkwinti said.
Illegal imports would be targeted through an intergovernmental task team made up of the police, the receiver of revenue and a number of departments.
The Zero Hunger Campaign would be expanded and food security would be secured by stabilising wheat and maize production, while a strategy was being drafted for supporting industrial development through the green economy by leveraging off those interventions in the Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP).
Government was also developing a beneficiation strategy for the mining sector.
Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies pointed out that there were significant benefits in beneficiation - giving the example of the planned zirconium beneficiation plant, announced by Minister of Economic Development Ebrahim Patel, in an address to the National Assembly earlier this month.
Davies said the export of titanium sands, which South Africa is presently involved in, nets the country about $400 a ton for the mineral, while titanium alloy, used in the aircraft industry (which the zirconium plant would produce) is sold for about $100 000 a ton.
He said the reform of the country's procurement system - through overhauling the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act - would become more targeted and conducted in a smarter way, with higher inputs of local content.
The regulations are currently before the cabinet, following the conclusion of work by an interdepartmental task team which reviewed the regulations.
Added to this, Davies said, his department would work with public enterprises to bolster procurement through various competitiveness supplier-development programmes.
The department would also clarify the national industrial participation programme's offset regulations, as municipalities were often under the mistaken belief that they could not benefit from offsets, Davies said.
Government also plans to cut down on illegal activities such as piracy, intellectual property theft and company hijackings.
Davies said the Department of Trade and Industry will partner with the tax officials and police as well as fellow departments to combat activities in the illicit economy and added that the government now had a much better understanding on how the illicit economy operated.
"Quite a lot of this (illicit activities) is being conducted by increasingly sophisticated international linked criminal syndicates," said Davies, who added that street vendors were often only at the end of the chain.
"We will be working intensely on this issue, but also smarter and more effectively as we move forward," said Davies, adding that the department was currently running a campaign on piracy of intellectual property.
"What it does is costs us jobs and if we are more effective, we will save a considerable amount of jobs in the South African economy," said Davies.
