The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies says the future of South Africa depends greatly on manufacturing. Minister Davies was speaking at the South Africa Automotive Week gala dinner in Port Elizabeth last night.
"We have identified as government through the New Growth Path and the Industrial Policy Action Plan that the future of our country depends on us strengthening ourselves as a manufacturing economy. We need to make the transition where we move incrementally from being a producer and exporter of primary products to becoming increasingly producers of value-added products. The automotive industry is the key example where this is taking place," said Minister Davies.
Davies said the Automotive Week was taking place at a time of a transition in government support for the automotive industry. The transition he referred to is the coming to an end of the Motor Industry Development Programme (MIDP) which has been in existence since 1995, and the implementation of the new Automotive Production and Development Programme (APDP) from January next year. He reeled off some of the achievements of the MIDP that he said were worthy of celebrating. These include the increasing in production of vehicles from under 400 000 units a year to more than 600 000 in 2006 and half a million last year due to dip resulting from the global economic recession earlier.
He reiterated that there was consensus amongst all stakeholders including the industry and labour, that the target of 1.2 million units of vehicles to be produced per year by 2020 set by the new automotive development programme was "achievable".
"As government we are looking for that growth to be matched by a growth in component manufacturing where we can create a number of opportunities for small enterprises working with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), increasing where we can see black owned SMMEs participating in the automotive industry as suppliers, where we can see entrepreneurs with real skills, real capacities and real abilities to play a meaningful role as industrialists in our country," said Minister Davies.
He emphasised that these were objectives that government was trying to achieve through interventions such as the small enterprise development programme and revised Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Codes of Good Practice that he unveiled for public comment last week.
Enquiries:
Sidwell Medupe, Departmental Spokesperson
Tel: 012 394 1650
Cell: 079 492 1774
E-mail: MSMedupe@thedti.gov.za
