South African President Thabo Mbeki said yesterday that the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) Council will be appointed as soon as the process of public comment on the Codes of Good Practice for Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment has been completed.

In his State of the Nation Address, Mbeki reiterated government's firm attention to speed-up broad-based BEE and small-business development.

He welcomed the recent announcement by newly-appointed Anglo American South Africa CEO Lazarus Zim, that his company will spend a large amount of resources on empowering a great number of black-owned enterprises.

Zim said that Anglo American South Africa would increase its procurement from BEE companies by between 20% and 30% every year, which would benefit small and medium-sized enterprises that offered goods and services to the company.

As CEO of Anglo American South Africa, Zim will also chair the transformation committee, whose primary role it is to provide increased focus on the transformation of Anglo American's South African businesses and to ensure the strategic alignment of country issues and the appropriate positioning of Anglo American South Africa as a major transformational player and investor in the South African economy.

Mbeki also welcomed the decision of the South African banks to implement the provisions of the Financial Sector Charter, as a result of which they have made a public three-year commitment to provide at least R85-billion to finance low-cost housing, infrastructure, black small business enterprises and new black farmers.

He added that government is in the progress of setting up the Small Enterprise Development Agency, to improve its performance in the critical area of the development of small and medium-sized enterprises.