Hon House Chair, Cope strongly believes that the overarching challenge for South Africa is to achieve a 7% sustainable growth path. Our people are very unhappy, as poverty is increasing without any hope of a meaningful reversal.
Last year, according to Statistics SA, 870 000 people lost their jobs in the formal economy. As we speak, millions are jobless and half of our population live below the poverty datum line. Our society, in terms of the Gini coefficient index - which measures inequality - is rated as the most unequal society in the world. Cope wants to see substantial growth. We need to see it now.
At present, the contribution to GDP from agriculture is a mere 0,9% and from industry 20,6%. Mechanised services, on the other hand, account for 78,5% of GDP. These proportions are totally skewed and very wrong. A paradigm shift is what is needed at the present moment.
Here are some of Cope's proposals for a new economic growth path: Being the most developed economy in Africa, we should be the super megastore for ICT for the continent. Much as Dubai is for the Middle East, South Africa should be for Africa.
Our marketing of ICT products should encompass a continent-wide view so that we achieve the scale of distribution to reduce prices, as Dubai does to attract buyers from all over the Middle East. Already MTN and Vodacom, which are headquartered in South Africa, have a continent-wide footprint.
South Africa is well placed to be the ICT hub of Africa and will, therefore, be able to attract Africa to shop for ICT products and services in our country. South Korea's Presidential Lead Programme has shown what can be done in this regard if the political will to overcome the digital divide is there. We now live in a knowledge economy and everything we do must reflect that. With greater investment in skills, we can have the capacity to service the whole of Africa in the field of ICT. Blue IQ is an example of what can be done to catalyse sustainable economic growth. We must overcome the constraints of the digital divide. North-South trade in Africa is grossly underdeveloped. South Africa must be a market for African products from all over the continent. Two-way trade must be escalated. We must scale up our Research and Development, R&D, expenditure and support innovation. Hundreds of people are sitting with small innovative ideas which they cannot bring to market because they lack capital. The state must baby-sit new manufacturing projects until they become viable and then sell them off at the point where banks will lend money cheaply. Within this context, entrepreneurship must be encouraged to spread like wildfire.
Agriculture has been steadily declining and that is why jobs have been shed in such large numbers. Our food security is in jeopardy. We import what is highly subsidised elsewhere and we are thereby destroying our own capacity for agricultural production. Agriculture accounts for less than 1% of our GDP. That simply cannot be. It is disturbing that, until now, government has not put forward any turnaround strategy for agriculture.
Sustainable productive manufacturing is critically important for our economy. However, in steel pricing, ArcelorMittal has shifted fully to the Black Sea import-parity pricing ... [Time expired.]