to the Eastern Cape Business Women Empowerment Expo
20 April 2009
Programme director
Madam President and members of the Chamber
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen
Programme director; please allow me to begin my address by quoting the
Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi who once said that entrepreneurship
should become a virus, âspreading through both the social and economic spheres
in the country.â I, therefore, believe that this Chamber will prove to be a
critical driver in that process in our province.
Addressing a National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(NAFCOC) conference in Port Elizabeth in June 2006 whilst I was MEC for
Department of Economic Development and Environmental Affairs (DEDEA), I
submitted that âWe have the biggest and most diverse economy on the African
continent with substantial manufacturing and beneficiation capacities, and
indeed we are the largest investor on the African continent. So, are we making
progress?
It is also true that despite these achievements and its current strength,
our economy is facing huge global challenges from other countries that produce
products for trade that are cheaper than our similar products, and this
inhibits our competitiveness. We also have the largest number of universities
and technikons on the continent and a culture of apprenticeship training, and
yet today we face a serious skills shortage in critical sectors of our
economy.
Government is of the view that if these structural and functional defects
are not addressed, our economic growth will soon begin to slow down.â
The question that we need to ask ourselves though is whether we are making
enough progress in extricating our small business people out of economic
marginalisation and whether we are creating sufficient opportunities for them
to grow their businesses!
The Eastern Cape has one of the lowest gross geographic products per head
compared to other provinces. It has the worst matric and university entrance
pass rates, and is among provinces with the lowest literacy rate. It also has
the highest proportions of households without access to clean water or
electricity, and the highest number of households living in traditional
dwellings.
Other interesting statistics, however, is that this province achieved an
economic growth rate in the period between 2004 and 2007 that nearly equalled
the national growth rate. But the real question is whether we are taking good
advantage of our provinceâs industrial, manufacturing agricultural, tourism and
forestry potential? Particularly so because some of the relevant infrastructure
already exists, but we need to identify new opportunities and develop
partnerships between the public and private sectors and between local companies
and foreign investors. The motor and construction sectors already provide a
strong base for further economic activity and growth.
The other question you may ask, as small business people, is how do you
benefit from these government and private sector programmes and initiatives?
Our provinceâs DEDEA works very closely with the Department of Trade and
Industry (dti), and through the organs such as the Apex Fund, Small Enterprise
Development Agency (SEDA), and we provide expert services and resources for
business development through Eastern Cape Development Corporate (ECDC), we are
at your service, particularly in promoting self employment and entrepreneurship
development, especially Small, Medium, Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) and
Co-operatives, targeting the manufacturing, tourism, infrastructure and
agriculture sectors.
We have exciting opportunities in our Industrial Development Zone (IDZ)
programmes in Coega and East London Development Zone (ELIDZ), with the former
being more advanced and boasting the deepest sea port in the Southern Africa
region. These IDZs lead our campaign in the quest for Foreign Direct
Investment.
Our province boasts an enormous potential and opportunities in the tourism,
including the hospitality, sector with outstanding fauna and flora in our game
parks.
The 2010 Soccer World Cup also provides our province with an opportunity to
train our people on the provision of good and quality services, and once more
particularly the hospitality services, and this training does not go away with
2010, but will add to the skills legacy we are building for our nation.
Accommodation establishments seeking to benefit from the World Cup must be
graded, and providers of these services should grab the opportunity created,
for the first time in FIFAâs history, that non-hotel accommodation such as
national park accommodation, bed and breakfasts, lodges and guesthouses will be
contracted for the tournament in 2010. Once again, this presents a unique
opportunity for the smaller accommodation establishments.
In applauding the initiative, I am mindful of the many challenges still
faced by SMMEs, and of the task for government and its partners, to foster and
promote the development of SMMEs, as we intensify the war on poverty and
unemployment.
As a country, we continue to face a myriad of challenges, including the deep
seated problems of poverty, inequalities and unemployment. The development of
the SMME sector is widely believed to offer some potential and sustainable
solutions to some of these challenges. One of the prerequisites in developing
this sector is developing a cadre of entrepreneurs that will take risks, break
new grounds, innovate and create new products. The low activity rate and high
failure rate in the SMME sector poses a great challenge to government, private
sector, and tertiary institutions to reach out to the community and develop
entrepreneurs.
The key challenges we are faced with to ensure a turn around relate to some
of the resolutions that have been adopted by the ruling party, which allude to
the building and strengthening of development finance institutions as well as
non-financial institutions, which should be accessible to the people. More
importantly, these institutions must be able to effectively channel financial
and institutional resources towards a variety of economic transformation
objectives including development of small businesses, co-operatives and
the empowerment of women and the youth.
Building of small and micro enterprises is also a critical developmental
challenge which requires the state to provide resources for building capacity
and institutions. Thus, acceleration of entrepreneurial skills and training is
at the centre of the drive to build self sustainable communities that can
actively participate in the mainstream economy.
Ladies and gentlemen, great strides have been made by our government and
these are aimed at the empowerment of women in our country. In this regard, the
formation of the various structures like the South African Womenâs
Entrepreneurâs Network (SAWEN) is yet another innovative way of taking the
empowerment further at the level of service delivery.
In 2004, the provincial government together with its social partners
developed a Provincial Growth and Development Plan as a decade long guide to
the provincial development and brings about a better life for all within the
context of realising an Eastern Cape devoid of the imbalances and inequities of
the past, with integrated and balanced development. To realise this, we
envisioned an Eastern Cape that is âa compelling place to live, work and invest
inâ. Even at this stage we still recognised that unless we tackle economic
growth, employment creation, poverty eradication and income redistribution
head-on we are not likely to make any meaningful breakthrough.
To this end, a lot has been achieved through by the provincial government in
partnership with all its social partners. Such achievements include the
following:
* trends in the Gross Domestic Product by Region (GDP-R) figures suggest that
the province has experience growth in line with the national average of above
4% per annum
* the unemployment rate in the province fell consistently during the past term
down from 27% to 23% though beginning to be negated by the current global
financial crisis.
* the building of world class logistics and transport infrastructure such as
the Coega and East London Industrial Development Zones
* the consolidation of manufacturing strengths around the automotive
sector
* the deepening and sharing of the impact of economic growth through
Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment
* addressing the skills deficit through a targeted skills plan, and the
establishment of a provincial council for the Join Initiative on Priority
Skills Acquisition (JIPSA)
* the establishment and beneficiation of the Mzimvubu Development Zone, and
Ugie-Maclear forestry cluster
* addressing red-tape bottlenecks that constrain investment
However, through the Industrial Development Strategy, the provincial
government has begun a way to identify concrete measures to diversify out of
the dependence on the automotive sector into other priority sectors that create
sustainable employment opportunities, including tourism, agro-processing,
forestry and timber. These are all the opportunities that our government is
currently embarking upon for the purpose of empowering our people, the poorest
of the poor, the previously disadvantaged and, in particular women.
At provincial level, the issue of gender equity, especially the access to
finance for women entrepreneurs, remains our challenge. A challenge is also
still the ability of the Province to increase the number of women in the
business sector as well as those that occupy management positions within the
private sector. Hopefully this Chamber will assist on that as well.
Importantly, is to note that entrepreneurship is the core to building a vibrant
and a sustainable small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) sector. The SMME
sector is critical to achieve our key development objectives of economic
growth, employment creation and equity.
Programme director, it is a common knowledge that the majority of rural
enterprises in our province comprise women's businesses in areas like crafts,
hawking, personal services and the retail sector which are treated as being at
the lower echelons of our economy.
Government is cutely aware of the shortcomings of its procurement and
payment systems as practiced in the various departments and municipalities. In
fora like these we can apply our minds to ways of addressing these challenges
and close the gaps. We need to identify ways on how we can mainstream women
empowerment and development mainly in the tourism, arts and craft as well as in
the minerals and energy Sector. The time to work with government is now,
because we believe that working together, we can do more. This also refers to
the upcoming FIFA World Cup which will create lots of business
opportunities.
These testify to the urgent need for more government involvement in women's
entrepreneurial development, and hence the dti has chosen entrepreneurship
development as a one of the best vehicles for fast track women's economic
empowerment.
It is our intention to work with women through the provision of business
information, economic literacy, and training for better management of their
enterprises as well as capacity building for qualitative and most importantly
quantitative product development. Providing women with local markets is where
we want to start, proceeding to exposing them to international markets.
A challenge we are seized with and would be happy to get inputs from
yourselves and beyond are packaging of specific products, including access to
finance for women in a manner that ensures sustainability of women
business.
May I also take this opportunity to wish you success in your deliberations,
and I declare this EXPO open.
Thank you.
Issued by: Office of the Premier, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
20 April 2009
Source: Office of the Premier, Eastern Cape Provincial Government (http://www.ecprov.gov.za)
