South Africa and the UK would place strong emphasis on entrepreneurial development as the two countries aim to get more people off welfare and into paying jobs, top government officials said in Johannesburg on Monday.

South Africa and the UK would launch an entrepreneurship forum in November, designed to build the capacity of South Africa’s entrepreneurs, which are key to economic growth and skills development.

Currently, South Africa has more people depending on welfare than it has taxpayers, while the UK has already announced that it would be cutting its welfare bill in order to deal with its debt issues.

Speaking at a JSE function as part of his working visit to South Africa, UK Prime Minister David Cameron said that the two countries needed to get people, “off welfare and off to work”.

He said that the UK launched a new campaign ‘StartUp Britain’, designed to accelerate enterprise development. This was launched up in response to the UK government’s call for an enterprise-led recovery. “This is a one-stop shop for people who want to open up their own businesses and will assist us in rebalancing our economy.”

Cameron said that it was essential for a country to make it as easy as possible for citizens to start a business and to employ others.

South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan agreed, saying that the country would rationalise institutions that work with prospective entrepreneurs in coming months.

He noted that it was important for entrepreneurs to gain access to micro financing, and mentioned that the State could underwrite certain parts of loans.

The Minister also spoke about cutting regulatory barriers in this sector and making it easier and more cost effective to start up a business in South Africa.

In recent years, South Africa has seen big business partner with smaller business to increase their chances of succeeding and Gordhan said that this model would be used more in the future.

Cameron noted that the two countries had much to gain through an entrepreneurial exchange scheme, both through knowledge exchange and boosting trade.

The two countries plan to double bilateral trade by 2015.