Pretoria- The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies, has told parliamentarians that manufacturing in South Africa remains seriously affected by the economic crises.
Briefing the Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry in Parliament on the department's Strategic Plan 2012-2017 & Annual Performance Plan 2012-2015 recently, Davies said the country has not recovered to the extent of where it was before the onset of the economic crises.
However, Davies told the Committee that 2011 saw stabilisation of employment and general increase in overall products of about seven and half per cent.
He said the launch of the Industrial Policy Action Plan III (IPAP) next month will boost the situation as it will support the work of the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Committee which set a framework for infrastructure programme.
It will also build on the lessons that the department has learned from the Clothing Industry Production Incentive and see the launch of the Manufacturing Competitiveness Enhancement Programme (MCEP).
MCEP is meant to address economic challenges that have resulted in job losses in the manufacturing sector.
The department will work with other government departments and institutions such as the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), to explore future appropriate industrial financing models.
Minister Davies stated that one of the new elements which is going come out of IPAP III is on the African continent in terms of the approach to regional integration.
"These include everything from SACU, SADC, the Tripartite Initiative (SADC-COMESA-EAC), and the continental. Everybody realise that what Africa needs is to promote industrial development and we need to cooperate to promote industrial development, and that has to be a key leg of development integration approach of the African continent," said Davies.
The two documents (Strategic Plan 2012-2017 & Annual Performance Plan 2012-2015) state that more than R21 billion worth of investment was facilitated by the Section 12 I of the Income Tax Act. The scheme falls under enterprise development and the projects that benefited are in Greenfield and expansion manufacturing.
According to the two documents, the priority of the department in terms of trade is African integration and inter-Brics trade. Davies mentioned that this does not mean that South Africa is intending forsaking the existing trading partners.
