South Africa reports success from ‘buy local’ campaign

The South African government aims to boost the production and sale of domestically-made products.

The South African government’s Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) has provided more information on its ‘master plans’, through which it aims to achieve an improvement in job creation and industrial development within a number of business sectors, including the production of leather footwear.

The combined value of the country’s retail, clothing, textiles and leather footwear sectors is now estimated at R74 billion (£3.6 billion/$5 billion). The plan is projected to create 212,000 jobs, with 120,000 of these being in retail.

Commenting on these objectives, director-general of the department Lionel October said: “small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a critical component of these master plans. For instance, the clothing and footwear sector is dominated by these entities.”

According to DTIC deputy director-general of industrial development Thandi Phele, the projections have been boosted by the ‘buy local’ campaign which has increased the purchase of South African products.

“The media campaigns that we embarked on are aimed at ensuring that we reach the 65 per cent purchase rate of local products,” she added. “This has been supplemented by our campaign to combat illegal imports. We have since institutionalised our enforcement mechanisms in this regard, we now have a dedicated rapid response team that deals with illegal imports.”

Publishing Data

This article was originally published on page 2 of the April 2021 issue of SATRA Bulletin.

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