South Africa will table legislation amending the Small Business Act, in order to set up a nationwide advocacy body to act as the voice of this sector and to ensure that support to SMMEs is available at the local level throughout the country.

This was announced by President Thabo Mbeki at the opening of Parliament on Friday.

With regard to the rural areas, Mbeki said the government would, this year, complete the processing of the Communal Land Bill, not only to ensure certainty in the ownership of assets by families in rural areas, including women, but also to encourage small-scale and co-operative agricultural production and thus improved food security.

“As the Bill indicates, this will be done in such a way that communal relations and elements of culture, consistent with democracy and human rights, are not undermined. In this context, certainly government has no intention to marginalise the traditional system of government,” he said.

Mbeki stated that government recognises the importance of the micro-enterprise sector with regard to the task of poverty alleviation and has, therefore, established an Apex Fund to provide micro-credit to people at the grassroots level.

Discussions with institutions active in this field would be concluded soon, so that funds set aside would reach the people in need as soon as possible.

“Despite continuing improvements in the capacity of the economy to create new jobs, the issue of unemployment remains one of our major challenges,” Mbeki added.

“Fundamentally, the solution to this problem is dependant on our achieving the necessary rates of economic growth and development”.