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Thursday, June 4, 2009.

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I'm Shannon O'Donnell.

Making headlines today:

President Jacob Zuma confirmed in his inaugural State of the Nation address that the Industrial Development Corporation has developed a programme to fund South African companies in distress as a result of the global economic crisis.

Zuma indicated that these potential bail-outs were in line with the framework for South Africa's response to the international economic crisis, concluded by government, labour and business in February.

However, he provided no specifics as to the nature or level of the proposed financial assistance, nor did he shed any new light on the criteria that would be used by the IDC for extending such crisis support.

But the President's confirmation was in line with a recent Department of Trade and Industry statement, which indicated that the IDC had created a specific response programme for clothing and textile firms in distress, and was also working on programmes for other sectors, including the automotive and mining industries.

It was unclear if South African phosphate and phosphoric acid producer Foskor would go ahead with its planned JSE listing this year. CEO Alfred Pitse was only willing to say that its main shareholder, the Industrial Development Corporation, would have to decide when the market conditions were right to pursue the listing.

The IDC had, in June last year, announced its intention to list Foskor on the JSE in the second half of 2009. But, by November, IDC CEO Geoffrey Qhena had said that it was monitoring the situation, given the changes in market conditions.

Meanwhile, Phalaborwa operations vice-president Johan Horn said that the company was hoping to finalise its black economic-empowerment deal, which would see the transfer of between 20 and 35% of shares in the company to a BEE partner, by the end of this month.

The IDC announced earlier that it wanted to sell a 26% stake in the company to BEE partners.

Also making headlines:

A Chinese company may drive off with the Hummer brand.
The Soccer City stadium is now over 90% completed.
The Quantas Airbus incident last October is unlikely to be relevant to the Air France disaster.
And, South Africans abroad seek jobs back home.

That's a round up of news making headlines today. For more on these and other stories please visit engineeringnews.co.za.