Gauteng MEC for Finance and Economic Affairs Jabu Moleketi yesterday announced a revised Gauteng Trade and Industry strategy (TIS), originally launched in 1997, which is designed to broaden economic benefits in the province and address unemployment.

The growth-orientated trajectory of the 1997 strategy has been maintained, and has been supplemented with strategies to address unemployment, black economic empowerment, small and medium enterprises, investment and sustainability, HIV-Aids in business and contribute to the New Programme for Africa’s Development (Nepad).

To achieve this, two additional strategic thrusts have been added to the three identified in the 1997 strategy.

The first three strategic thrusts included: - The re-alignment of the manufacturing sector towards more sophisticated and value-added production;

- the development of Gauteng province as the smart ‘capital’ of South Africa; and

- the development of the finance and business tourism sectors.

The two additional thrusts introduced this year include: - Employment generation and the benefits of this in income redistribution and poverty alleviation; and

- encouragement of new business activity to draw in participants at ownership and management levels from a wide spectrum of people.

Speaking at a conference in Johannesburg yesterday the MEC said that the thrusts were based on ‘growth’ pillars that specifically focus on developing growth and sustainability in the province.

The ‘growth-focus’ pillar is a model that identifies the economic strengths of Gauteng’s economy with strategic approaches to harness these and the socio-economic pillar is a model through which strategies are adopted to ensure that economic growth and progress address socio-economic needs in Gauteng.

Moleketi explained the addition of the two extra strategic thrusts by saying: “The collective outcome of these additional thrusts are that they recognise the uneven spread of benefits from economic growth by ensuring that growth has equitable outcomes across society.

“They also encourage equitable benefits from economic growth to previously disadvantaged individuals, thereby increasing their ability to participate in economic opportunities,” he said.

The MEC identified two strong economic sectors in Gauteng, which would be a pivotal focus for the growth strategy – the financial services sector and business tourism. “Gauteng has been described as the business tourism powerhouse of Africa,” said Moleketi.

“In 2001, 2,17-million business tourists visited the province and accounted for 33 000 permanent jobs in Gauteng,” he claimed.

In addition, the financial sector is a significant contributor to Gauteng’s gross domestic product (GGP), contributing a current 24,7% to the GGP of the province, therefore being identified as a priority sector by the TIS this year.

The other nine target sectors being earmarked for growth are information and communication technology, automotive components, stell-related industries, pharmaceuticals, food and agricultural processing, beer and malt, the film industry and the chemical waste sector.

“These are all endevours to promote job absorption, “ confirmed Moleketi.