TECHNOLOGY group Google, cellphone company Vodacom and the Department of Trade and Industry have joined forces in a project aimed at placing 10000 small and medium businesses on the internet for free.
The initiative, launched in Pretoria yesterday, provides a boost to the government’s efforts to reduce unemployment by encouraging entrepreneurs to start new businesses, as outlined in the New Growth Path, which aims to create 5-million jobs between 2011 and 2020. The main partners are joined by advisory body the Human Resource Development Council in offering Woza Online, a website service that enables businesses to create websites for free. The websites are also hosted for free. Hosting and possible domain fees will be covered by Google and Vodacom.
Luke McKend, Google’s country manager for SA, said the company had decided it could contribute to the economy and help small and medium companies reach more customers through Woza Online, particularly those that had not previously had a presence on the internet.
World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck, who was present at the website’s launch, said even though 65% of small and medium businesses in SA had websites, the 35% that did not amounted to hundreds of thousands of companies. "As much as 79% of those businesses with websites are profitable, while only 59% of those without, are profitable," he said.
Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Elizabeth Thabethe said the initiative recognised the importance of small businesses for SA’s economy. "As many as 2,8-million small and medium-sized enterprises contributed about 55% to SA’s gross domestic product last year. They also provide employment for young people and women. Therefore, my department welcomes what Google and the other partners are trying to do," she said.
Up to 50% of youth aged 15-25 are unemployed in SA yet a report released by the South African Institute of Race Relations this week said the number of established owner-manager businesses in SA remained below the world average. Based on the 2010 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, the reports said SA’s average new business ownership was 2,5% in 2009. The average for the 60 countries surveyed was 17,1%. The percentage referred to people in the 18-64 age group who were owner-managers of new businesses. This meant they owned and managed a business that had paid salaries, wages or any other payments for more than three months, but not more than 42 months.
Given data released by Statistics SA, about 343000 jobs were made in the first three quarters of last year. According to Adcorp Employment data, 397000 jobs were added last year.
Source: Business Day
Showing posts with label Department of Trade and Industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Department of Trade and Industry. Show all posts
Friday, January 20, 2012
Friday, August 13, 2010
How Amsa outwitted DTI
Steel giant ArcelorMittal South Africa (Amsa) appears to have found a political solution to its commercial problems by announcing two deals involving controversial Imperial Crown Trading (ICT). ArcelorMittal will buy ICT for R800-million if it is able to convert its prospecting rights at Sishen to full mining rights in its contested battle with iron ore giant, Kumba. It has also announced a BEE deal in which ICT's politically connected shareholders feature prominently.
ArcelorMittal has fought a low-intensity war with the government, which has been keen to see it pass on the benefits of the special developmental pricing it enjoys in securing cheap iron ore, such as from the giant Sishen mine. Its special pricing deal with Kumba's Sishen Iron Ore Company, intended to help supply the country with cheap steel, has been worth as much as R5-billion a year to the steel giant, according to one analyst. But ArcelorMittal has responded with aggressive pricing, which has seen it in an ongoing conflict with the authorities and has to date not moved to bring in empowerment shareholders.
Frustration with Arcelor-Mittal led the government earlier this year to threaten forced divestiture of its assets as a means to bring it to book. An analyst, who asked not to be named because of the political sensitivity of the matter, said that, by dealing with ICT, Amsa had legitimised an underhand process.
The deals with ICT have drawn fire because ArcelorMittal is seen to be siding with a party that secured these rights under irregular and possibly illegal circumstances. ICT won the right to prospect on an existing mine, one of the world's largest.
President Jacob Zuma's son, Duduzane, is a primary beneficiary of the ArcelorMittal deals with ICT, as are the Gupta family, who are known to have close links to the president. The Guptas are already very wealthy and, as natives of India, are not previously disadvantaged. While the deal will leave Amsa empowered, the inclusion of ICT, Zuma and the Guptas in the empowerment transaction has undermined real transformation in the sector, critics complain.
The Mail & Guardian has confirmed that ANC national chairperson Baleka Mbete pulled out of the deal. "I was approached with an offer to participate; I declined. The deal's structure was outside the investment philosophy and criteria of our women's group," Mbete said. She did not specify which women's group she was referring to. But it is understood that Mbete was talking to ArcelorMittal before the ICT controversy broke, and that she and her group withdrew only last week.
Earlier this year it was announced that ICT had been awarded the prospecting right to a 21% residual portion of mining rights in Sishen, which had reverted to the state in 2009. ArcelorMittal, the former owner of the rights, failed to convert them to new order rights, as required under the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act.
The share was critical to a supply contract between Amsa and Kumba, whereby Amsa was entitled to more than six-million tonnes from Sishen at cost plus 3%. When the rights reverted to the state, Kumba demanded that Amsa buy iron ore at market prices. While this dispute is now subject to arbitration, it led to Amsa instituting a R600/tonne surcharge on its products.
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) was so incensed by the Sishen surcharge that it took the matter to the Competition Commission, which is investigating it. The surcharge, which ran between May and August this year, was halted when Kumba and Amsa came to an interim pricing agreement pending arbitration.
Rob Davies, the trade and industry minister, refused to comment on the particulars of the deal, but said the ministry intended to ensure a competitive steel price and a local manufacturing industry. The ministry also wanted to ensure that some of the iron ore from Sishen would be made available at concessionary prices for local steel manufacturing. Analysts view the Amsa deal as commercially savvy, if unpalatable.
Source: Mail & Guardian
ArcelorMittal has fought a low-intensity war with the government, which has been keen to see it pass on the benefits of the special developmental pricing it enjoys in securing cheap iron ore, such as from the giant Sishen mine. Its special pricing deal with Kumba's Sishen Iron Ore Company, intended to help supply the country with cheap steel, has been worth as much as R5-billion a year to the steel giant, according to one analyst. But ArcelorMittal has responded with aggressive pricing, which has seen it in an ongoing conflict with the authorities and has to date not moved to bring in empowerment shareholders.
Frustration with Arcelor-Mittal led the government earlier this year to threaten forced divestiture of its assets as a means to bring it to book. An analyst, who asked not to be named because of the political sensitivity of the matter, said that, by dealing with ICT, Amsa had legitimised an underhand process.
The deals with ICT have drawn fire because ArcelorMittal is seen to be siding with a party that secured these rights under irregular and possibly illegal circumstances. ICT won the right to prospect on an existing mine, one of the world's largest.
President Jacob Zuma's son, Duduzane, is a primary beneficiary of the ArcelorMittal deals with ICT, as are the Gupta family, who are known to have close links to the president. The Guptas are already very wealthy and, as natives of India, are not previously disadvantaged. While the deal will leave Amsa empowered, the inclusion of ICT, Zuma and the Guptas in the empowerment transaction has undermined real transformation in the sector, critics complain.
The Mail & Guardian has confirmed that ANC national chairperson Baleka Mbete pulled out of the deal. "I was approached with an offer to participate; I declined. The deal's structure was outside the investment philosophy and criteria of our women's group," Mbete said. She did not specify which women's group she was referring to. But it is understood that Mbete was talking to ArcelorMittal before the ICT controversy broke, and that she and her group withdrew only last week.
Earlier this year it was announced that ICT had been awarded the prospecting right to a 21% residual portion of mining rights in Sishen, which had reverted to the state in 2009. ArcelorMittal, the former owner of the rights, failed to convert them to new order rights, as required under the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act.
The share was critical to a supply contract between Amsa and Kumba, whereby Amsa was entitled to more than six-million tonnes from Sishen at cost plus 3%. When the rights reverted to the state, Kumba demanded that Amsa buy iron ore at market prices. While this dispute is now subject to arbitration, it led to Amsa instituting a R600/tonne surcharge on its products.
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) was so incensed by the Sishen surcharge that it took the matter to the Competition Commission, which is investigating it. The surcharge, which ran between May and August this year, was halted when Kumba and Amsa came to an interim pricing agreement pending arbitration.
Rob Davies, the trade and industry minister, refused to comment on the particulars of the deal, but said the ministry intended to ensure a competitive steel price and a local manufacturing industry. The ministry also wanted to ensure that some of the iron ore from Sishen would be made available at concessionary prices for local steel manufacturing. Analysts view the Amsa deal as commercially savvy, if unpalatable.
Source: Mail & Guardian
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