In her first Budget Vote speech as Deputy Minister of the newly created Department of Small Business Development (DSBD), Elizabeth Thabethe has assured Parliament that the department will “aggressively” explore opportunities for small, medium-sized and microenterprises (SMMEs) and cooperatives locally and across the globe. 

Elaborating on the department’s early successes, she noted that the DSBD had reestablished a permanent showroom at AmericasMart, in Atlanta, in the US, showcasing locally designed and manufactured home décor lifestyle products – in what is a global industry offering extensive opportunities for South African creative industries.

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the value of world exports of creative-industry goods and services reached $592-billion in 2008 – up from $267-billion in 2002.

“During this period, the creative industries gained shares in global markets, growing at a yearly rate of 14%. This upward trend is likely to continue, given the positive prospects for global demand, even in turbulent times,” Thabethe said during her address on Tuesday.

She also recently led a delegation of SMME business owners to one of the world’s biggest folk art markets in New Mexico, also in the US, during which the South African producers showcased their wares and earned “what most [local] crafters would do in a year.”

She said South Africa’s continued participation at the Santa Fe Folk Art Market and the establishment of South Africa’s showroom at AmericasMart was thus informed by the knowledge that there was a global market and demand for South African products.

“South Africa is endowed with both indigenous and contemporary craft and design talent and we must also be at the forefront in not only meeting this demand, but ensuring that it does so in a manner that would benefit the rural and indigenous communities of South Africa,” she commented.

Adding that government could not continue to support SMMEs and cooperatives in the same way as it had in the past “and expect different results”, Thabethe stated that the DSBD would, in partnership with the Department of Higher Education and Training, soon establish a Cooperatives Academy to ensure that local cooperatives were better trained and that their members had a holistic view and understanding of this business model.