South Africa Commits Support To Apparel-Textile Sector

South Africa Commits Support To Apparel-Textile Sector

South Africa’s Clothing and Textile Competitiveness Programme has helped sector exports grow from 7.1-billion rand (R) in 2008 to R25.1 billion in 2017 and will receive its share of the R15.9 billion allocated to incentives and the Expanded Public Works Programme. The Small Business and Innovation Fund will also help entrepreneurs in the pre-start-up phase.

Twenty two new leather factories have been opened in the last nine years creating 2,200 jobs. To augment this, government funds will be reprioritised to the clothing and textiles production incentive from special economic zones, according to a report in an engineering news website from South Africa.

The national treasury has, over the medium term, placed incentives for agriculture, land reform, manufacturing and research and development among its priorities for expenditure reprioritisation.

The CEO Initiative’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Fund has raised R1.4-billion till now, with about R500-million expected to be committed for debt and equity investments in SMEs by the first quarter of 2019.

The financial sector has committed to invest R100-billion over five years in black industrial enterprises and firms. The Financial Sector Transformation Council is working with the Department of Trade and Industry to finalise guidelines for the disbursement of this funding, the report added