South Africa's Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies says the positive impact and
success of the Buy Local Campaign is
dependent on the private sector and consumers throwing their weight behind the
initiative aimed at adding impetus to the country’s economy’s growth. Minister
Davies was speaking at the 3rd Buy
Local Summit and Expo that is hosted by Proudly South African at the
Emperors Place in Ekurhuleni today.
“In
line with the theme of the Summit, which is “Buy Local – Make it Your
Business”, it is incumbent upon the business sector and consumers to join the
government and commit themselves to supporting our localisation efforts by
making it their business to promote and buy locally-produced goods. If all of
us can take decision to buy locally-manufacture products, we can create a more
positive future for our country in terms of employment opportunities,” said
Minister Davies.
He
added that government was committed to ensuring that public entities took steps
to ensure that there was a progressive and incremental movement towards
fulfilling the aspirational target of 75% local content in procurement, which
was agreed upon by all stakeholders in the formulation of the Localisation
Procurement Accord.
Minister
Davies stated local procurement was one of the tools that government was
putting in place to promote and strengthen industrialisation. Others include
amendments to the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act and designation
of locally-manufactured goods for procurement by government.
“We
cannot expect to grow, develop and increase employment as a country if we
simply continue to be located in a world economy as producers and exporters of
primary products and importers of finished goods. Part of efforts to bring transformation in
our economy such that it could create sustainable, decent work and address
poverty and equality, which are our major challenges, required that we bring a
structural change. That is the reason why industrialisation has become the
imperative of our government, “ said Davies.
Speaking
at the same event, the Minister of Public Enterprise, Malusi Gigaba said Eskom
has set itself a target of spending over R24-billion a year to businesses owned
by black youth by 2017.
He
stated that it is critical to use state owned companies to open up
opportunities for emerging black miners.
“Eskom
has negotiated an export capacity allocation at Richards Bay which will be used
to provide emerging miners with access to global markets. We have also
established a task team involving Transnet and the Chamber of mines to
determine how the expansion of the Richards Bay coal terminal can be leveraged
to enable access to more capacity for emerging miners,” added Minister Gigaba.
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| Minister Davies cutting the ribbon to open the Buy Local Summit |
