Rob Davies, the South African Minister of Trade and Industry, recently launched a new Department of Trade and Industry (dti) initiative to promote support of locally manufactured products. Davies spoke at the launch of the ‘Buy Back SA’ campaign which took place at the Industrial Corporation Offices in Sandton in November.
The launch of the campaign, which is a joint initiative with Manufacturing Circle and Proudly South Africa, was supported by an advertisement flighted on national television networks in support of localisation and the manufacturing sector. Featuring veteran actor John Kani, the advertisement was paid for by the private and public sector.
“Today we are launching the first phase of this campaign before the festive season because we want to impress upon consumers and stakeholders in the private and public sectors the importance of buying locally manufactured goods and products,” he said, adding that South African manufacturers were known for manufacturing goods and products that are of good quality and were obtained at a good price. Davies stated that the dti wants to encourage people to buy these products because of the significance in terms of job creation, revenue generation and service delivery improvement.
Minister Davies also pointed out that the South African government has deployed a diverse set of policy instruments to support localisation. These include a range of sectors and products that the dti has designated for local procurement inclusive of the clothing and textile sector, buses, rolling stock and power pylons under the Preferential Public Procurement Finance Act.
“We have also reviewed and put in place a new policy framework for the National Industrial Participation Programme to oblige overseas companies that have benefitted from state contracts above $10 million to invest a percentage of the contract directly into the productive sectors of the economy, wherever possible in the sector in which they are involved,” said Davies.
He added that buying local is not just about consumers buying locally manufactured goods. “It is also crucially about companies – especially large retailers with large procurement budgets and supply chains – supporting local manufacturers, not only because this is in the national interest but because there are very often sound commercial reasons for doing so related to total cost of ownership: after-sales service; quick response; security of supply; niche product requirements; quality assurance and so forth,” he stated.
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