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South Africa’s Black Business Backs National Development Plan

South Africa’s Black Business Backs National Development Plan

From SouthAfricaInfo.com

South Africa’s Black Business Council has thrown its weight behind the country’s long-term socio-economic development roadmap, the National Development Plan (NDP).

A policy blueprint for eliminating poverty and reducing inequality in South Africa by 2030, the NDP identifies the key constraints to faster growth and presents a roadmap to a more inclusive economy that will address the country’s socio-economic imbalances.

In a televised interview with the SABC on Tuesday, Black Business Council general secretary Sandile Zungu said the NDP gave South Africa, for the first time since the Freedom Charter, a guiding vision that could unite the country.

Zungu told the SABC that the document was still “picture imperfect”, with various sectors have expressed “this or that concern” with it.

However, the council, “as a collective of black business, is saying, ‘Let’s support this, let us make sure this economy grows at a sustainable level of six percent and more to create jobs and to enhance the competitiveness of our country for the prosperity of all.'”

Zungu was speaking ahead of a conference, hosted by the Black Business Council in Johannesburg, on the role of black business in implementing the NDP.

He said the organization had identified a number of barriers to the entry of black businesses into the mainstream of the economy, including difficulties with access to capital, mentoring and training, and supply chains.

These could be addressed, Zungu said, by the government acting as a partner to business through its development finance institutions.

At the same time, the council urged big business to make small businesses part of their supply chains.

Read more at SouthAfricaInfo.com.

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