About R80 billion was generated by black industrialists in South Africa during the 2023/24 financial year alone. This is according to the Minister of Trade and Industry Ebrahim Patel.
Patel revealed this while briefing the Portfolio Committee of the National Assembly in Parliament on Friday last week. He says about 600 of the industrialists were financially supported by the DTI during the current financial year.
“On transformation, 690 black industrialist firms that were supported by the DTI were surveyed. And what the survey indicated was in the reporting period they generated a turnover of more than R8 billion rand. These numbers will increase further because, in quarter four, we have done additional work to include more firms.”
The DTI says it has managed to assist more than one million workers with skills development in the workplace. It says these include relevant help even for those who are looking for employment.
Patel says the next focus will be on protecting the available jobs and creating new employment opportunities through the DTI programmes.
“The department sets the goal of at least covering one million workers with the programmes of the DTIC group. And during Q2 and Q3, it met the target. If you look at all the areas of work and you take the number of workers covered, there would be just an over a million. But what we must now do is deepen the impact of those programmes on workers and entrepreneurs with greater impact on saving jobs and expanding new jobs,” says Patel.
