South Africa’s economic growth and the inclusion of black businesses will be spotlighted on Wednesday of next week.
The first Black Industrialists and Black Exporters Conference will take place at the Sandton Convention Centre the next week, attracting both the public and private sectors. The event is anticipated to draw more than 500 delegates.
Ebrahim Patel, the minister of trade, industry, and competition, spoke to the media on Thursday and said the conference was a chance to consider how far the nation has come in terms of economic inclusion.
There will be five major sections to the conference. The launch of significant growth initiatives like the black export network, several panel discussions, a marketplace showcasing the goods made by small businesses, and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s keynote speech are among them.
“The fourth one will be the Presidential Awards that will be issued for Excellence in Business. The final part of it will be the release of research results on the impact of various policy measures to promote economic inclusion and grow the base participation in our economy,” he said.
Minister Patel said the spotlight of the conference will be the 500 businesses “that are making, growing, and digging things, adding to GDP, employing South Africans, exploiting their products. It’s about emphasising the opportunities that they have to grow the economy”.
He claimed that they are business owners who are skilled at creating and producing goods like food, chemicals, cosmetics, and other products.
“We’ll also look at structures that limit the opportunities for Black shareholders to play a meaningful role in the economy,” he stated.
Government did not create industrialists, but it did create a supportive and enabling environment that either helps or hinders industrialists from succeeding.
Black-owned businesses face the same obstacles as other types of businesses.
“They have challenges getting raw materials on time, at reasonable prices, getting the right technology, [and] fixing the technology when it breaks down.
“[They have challenges of] recruiting a great team of managers and workers, training everybody, getting the infrastructure in place, including public infrastructure that they need, getting customers – let’s call it the traditional problems of business.”
In addition, black businesses struggle with a lack of access to capital and finance.
He claimed that the government launched the black industrialist programme to address this issue and find ways to foster entrepreneurship despite these obstacles.
Many of the program’s elements will be discussed at the conference by the government.
“We work in partnership with businesses [that] are working with black suppliers, bringing them into the supply chain. This has been replicated in many other parts of the economy,” he said.
The initiative was a component of a larger, more comprehensive programme for black economic empowerment on a societal level.
These, according to him, include worker ownership, union investment plans, and women-owned community plans that pool capital before figuring out how to raise a business’s equity.