The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies re-launched the Support Programme for Industrial Innovation (SPII) at the Innovation Summit held in Cape Town today. SPII, which has assisted many enterprises, was designed to promote technology development in South Africa’s industry, through the provision of financial assistance for the development of innovative products and/or processes.

Addressing delegates through a video link, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies said the programme was transferred from the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) to be administered by the Incentive Development and Administration Division (IDIAD) of the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti), and supports innovators to ensure that they contribute to the growth of the economy.

According to Davies, the SPII is one of the support instruments developed to give effect to the work of the dti through the Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP) and supports small, micro to medium as well as large enterprises.

“The intention of SPII is to promote the development of technologically innovative products or processes that are commercially viable and internationally competitive thus rendering the SA Industry to be competitive. Our biggest challenge is to get these industrial innovations to be commercial products,” said Davies.

He highlighted that with SPII, the department would be able to assist in developing the entrepreneurial mind-set and functional skill-sets to enable innovators to create and launch their technology ventures. Davies also said the programme was based on a matching grant principle which has succeeded in leveraging funding from the private sector, increasing investment in technology development, diffusion and commercialisation.

“The programme is divided into three support schemes, namely the Product Process Development (PPD) scheme which is a non-repayable grant focusing on small, micro and medium enterprises and capped at maximum R2 million. There is also the Matching Scheme which provides a non-taxable, non-repayable grant of between 50% and 75% of qualifying costs and capped at R5 million, as well as the conditionally repayable Partnership Scheme which is a non-taxable and conditionally repayable grant of 50% of qualifying costs with a minimum grant R10 000 000,” he added.

The Deputy Director-General of the Incentive Development and Administrative Division of the dti, Ms Malebo Mabitje-Thompson said the department would continue to collaborate with the departments of Science and Technology and its agencies, as well as Basic and Higher Education to ensure that support was provided for innovative enterprises. She added that the dti would also ensure that it utilises its Export Promotion schemes to try and expose such products to international markets.

The summit was attended by hundreds of innovators and entrepreneurs across the country to showcase their talents and learn about types of support they can access from the different institutions in order to ensure success for their ideas and businesses.

Issued by The Department of Trade and Industry