Thank you very much for that question. There are a number of things that we need to do. I would start by saying I recognise that the level of skills in an economy is absolutely fundamental to our success. So, the first thing we need to do is to hold onto more and more of our young, skilled South Africans, and that is, they stay here when they see greater opportunities, or as the economy grows more people will in fact want to stay here.
The second part of it is that we've got to attract back South Africans that are working elsewhere in the world, and as we do our outreach now we are meeting with what we call members of the African Diaspora - South Africans and others who are now living elsewhere in the world - and we are saying to them, come back home. Help to build the economy and help to build the country.
The third thing we are doing is making it easier for skilled immigration; for people from elsewhere to come in with scarce skills that we don't have in South Africa. An example of that would be if
big multinational corporation makes South Africa its African headquarters and it needs managers with skills across different technologies that we have not been exposed to. We want to make it easier for them to get work visas. The President spoke about that in the investment conference.
However, there's another part that we should also do, which is to build ... as they say grow our own timber. Increase the number of young people that are given opportunities and experience, because the challenge that many bright young people find is that in order to be experienced they must be given an opportunity to work. To be given an opportunity to work they are often told we need experience. So, we've got to break that cycle by doing things like learnerships, apprenticeship arrangements, mentoring arrangements and so on, to boost it.
I want to share with members a visit that I made to the Toyota plant in Durban. It's a very significant producer of cars on the African continent as they do the Corollas, the Fortuners and the minibus taxis.
As I walked to different parts of the factory, opening up a new part that we had now contributed to, the manager would introduce me to an
engineer. So in the paint shop I would meet the chemical engineer. On the production floor I would meet the mechanical engineer. In the area where they do the electronics of the car I would meet an electrical engineer.
What struck me was that they were all young people and what also struck me was that almost all of them were women. I asked the manager where he got his workforce from. He said they get it from the same place that all the other companies get their workers from. They don't go to a special effort. They draw from the local community. I took note of it and then he took me to other sections and he said, you see this area here Minister? Globally, we are the second-best performer in the Toyota system. We beat all the other Toyotas. We are the best performer in the world in this one here. We are the fourth best performer in this one.
So I said to him, I often hear a complaint that we are not doing enough with regard to training. How come you have the best products and the best people? He said, Minister, I go and take people from university or college. At university or college they are taught to think. When they come here into this factory I teach them to work. That has transformed that factory into a highly-competitive work environment with ... [Applause.] ... young South Africans, women,
others leading the production. I think that can be the motto for what we do. So, I think it is the package of issues to deal with skills that we need to address. [Applause.]