Speaker, I want to start by responding to the hon Leader of the Opposition: Congratulations on your appointment. But I am afraid that your points about the alleged inadequacy of the reply by the Deputy President were way off the mark.
What the Deputy President understood, which you appear not to understand, is that matters of labour law have, as a matter of law, to be referred for discussion in Nedlac. I think that the question of the youth subsidy and the impact on labour law therefore is correctly referred to Nedlac. Actually, I would say that the accord which we signed on localisation earlier this week and the other accords which are emerging on things like the green economy and enterprise development show the wisdom of working with social partners, rather than trying to ram something down the throats - fight resistance - of social partners. The Deputy President was expressing his confidence in that process to deliver a result, and I think that is correct.
I also want to respond to the point made by the hon Radebe about the programme in Gauteng, and say to him that I think that that is actually indicating a way to go. If I can just extract from that: there is a focus on youth; there is a focus on skills development; and there is a focus on promoting access to technology and on encouraging employment by new enterprises. That is exactly the way to go. It is that kind of understanding that has also led the Department of Trade and Industry to indicate that we will be expanding our programmes to roll out incubation programmes so that we can create entrepreneurs whose skills are really rooted in the activities that the entrepreneurs are intended to be part of.
Finally, let me just say to the hon Singh that I think all his observations about the world economy are spot on and so is the observation that in such an environment we have to redouble our efforts to make sure that our own economy is resilient to withstand this environment. It is precisely for that reason that in the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement the Minister of Finance announced additional measures to support competitiveness in manufacturing. We have seen a need for manufacturers to continue to raise competitiveness, to continue to invest despite the climate. We think that that is absolutely imperative. That is the way to go. If we can weather this storm, Africa and South Africa have a bright future, but we have to get over through storm, and that is why we are working to try to enhance our programmes. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Speaker, just on a point of order: I see that the Minister has had a very long period to respond. I just want to remind you of the Rules again. [Interjections.]
Hon member, I am the timekeeper.