New set of incentives to be announced in September,
writes Leonard Neill
THE DEPARTMENT of Trade and Industry is restructuring to make itself more private sector-friendly, and business can expect a major announcement by minister Alec Erwin at the beginning of September.
We know that we have not been operating in the best way and we are doing something positive about it, DTI director-general Alistair Ruiters admitted
to a breakfast gathering of
the Johannesburg Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry last week.
We know whatever we do as government we cannot increase growth and create jobs without a proper working partnership with the private sector, said Ruiters. But we also know that people in business can seldom get to the person they are looking for in our department when in need of assistance.
We realise that DTI needs to be more client orientated. It takes too long to register a company. It also takes too long to reach the right people in our headquarters. That is all about to be changed.
DTI is in the process of unbundling itself, he said. There will be greater focus on specialisation and it will be a tale of out with the past and in with a new-look organisation.
As an example, the Board of Trade and Tariffs is being totally restructured. A nominally independent board is being established, focused on supporting private business and improving the securing of import licences and export documentation.
Trade development teams are to be introduced whose task it will be to go into trade areas to find what is being done there and how to go about dealing with them.
We plan to create the right conditions for the private sector, said Ruiters. We want to be able to do this based on knowledge and not thumb sucks which has happened too often in the past. Trade delegations will be led by specialists and not bag carriers. It is disturbing to find that your delegation leader is often
the man who has to see about your baggage being correctly stowed on the
bus taking you to the
next seminar somewhere abroad.
It is all part of building linkages in the private sector. We need trade support to help build export capacity. We need to provide the incentives for businessmen to invest their money, and among the minister's announcements in September will be a new set of incentives.
We need to put more effort into small business strategy, and we must also make it attractive for firms to take the unemployed youngsters into their companies.
This is not a lot of pie in the sky. We have a long way to go but we are going there with determination. It is a challenge we have faced and out of it will come a new plan for proper partnership between DTI and the private sector.
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