The government has made firm progress on six points of its plan for responding to the economic recession and stimulating a recovery, Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel told Parliament on Thursday.

Patel said these included setting up a new national job fund to retrain workers vulnerable to retrenchment over a period of up to three months to help them secure jobs.

The fund has been given R2,4-billion by the National Skills Fund and the Unemployment Insurance Fund for intensive, targeted training and will be up and running in September, Patel said.

"The training layoff scheme is the first of its kind the government has launched and we have designed its implementation to be as simple as possible."

The State has also launched a clamp-down on customs fraud and counterfeit smuggling and would be pressing criminal charges against more than a dozen companies.

"The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has now reported significant progress in respect of investigations and the confiscation of goods," he said.

He said in the clothing and textiles industry, the anti-fraud campaign had so far resulted in four companies being investigated for smuggling, 15 for round-tripping and 14 for export incentive abuse.

Five companies are being probed for under-declaration of the value of goods and will be criminally charged.

Thirdly, Patel said, government has reacted to "huge job losses" by facilitating support for the automobile sector, a rescue package for the clothing and textile industry and increased incentives for transport equipment and metal products linked to the State's infrastructure investment programme.

In return, automobile companies that get assistance have had to agree to a moratorium on retrenchment for the whole of the period in which they receive help, with exceptions made if it is essential for the company's survival.

To help small, medium and macro enterprises weather the recession, government has made a commitment to paying those contracted to the State within 30 days.

The Minister said steps were taken to ease access to credit and the Independent Development Corporation has made R6-billion available over the next two years to respond directly to the economic crisis.

It has approved loans to 11 companies to the value of R743-million since April and was currently weighing another 49 applications for credit.

Patel said a crackdown was underway on anti-competitive behaviour in the food industry to tackle unacceptably high prices and this has so far led to investigations into maize, milk, poultry and fats and oils producers as well as supermarkets.

"Seven parts of the food supply chain are now the subject of attention by the competition authorities."

In the last instance, he said, a business initiative has been set up to draft guidelines on debt-restructuring to help consumers who cannot service their debt.

Patel described the recession as the most serious economic challenge South Africa has faced since the advent of democracy and warned that unemployment was soaring with nearly 450 000 jobs sheds in the first half of the year.

At the same time, manufacturing had dropped to levels last seen five years ago, reversing four years of modest growth in this regard, and retail sales had dropped back to mid-2006 levels.

"As retrenchments and job losses increase, they impact on consumption, leading to lower demand which can result in a renewed round of job losses."