By: ANG Reporter
KwaZulu-Natal Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube has affirmed the provincial government to grow the economy of the province for the benefit of ordinary members of society.
She said this on Tuesday evening, during a dinner with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ambassadors, and that her government was deploying more resources to assist those who were previously marginalized and excluded from the mainstream economy.
“In whatever we do, Excellencies, we want to help thousands of people who have been retrenched and condemned to rural villages and peri-urban informal settlements as a result of COVID-19.”
“Our actions are motivated by the fact that the pandemic revealed a huge crisis. It revealed structural racial and gender disparities in business ownership. This can’t continue, ” she pointed out.
The ASEAN Ambassadors are in the country to explore investment opportunities. They represent an integrated market of 680 million, with a GDP of US$3.3 trillion, notwithstanding the diversity of the region in terms of size and level of development of individual member states.
Equally, the SADC region has a population of more than 371.78 million people – meaning that we have massive markets for trade and to drive socio-economic development initiatives.
Dube-Ncube added: “A series of incoming and outgoing missions have been planned to ensure people-to-to-people contacts, business-to-business interactions for the benefit of the people of this province.”
“Excellencies, a partnership and co-operation with countries in the ASEAN bloc because we know no country that has grown on a sustained basis in recent times without successfully integrating into global markets.”
“There are two facets to this: Integration into the goods markets, and integration into input markets – notably integration into financial capital. As we welcome you this evening, we would like to make this point.”
“We want to ensure that our people are assisted to acquire skills to produce finished products from timber such as furniture. We are also focusing on the clothing and textile sector to ensure that clothing items produced in this province are exported to the world. We are setting up a Clothing and Textile Economic Zone. There are areas of collaboration in that regard.”
“We are also focusing on the digital economy and the use of cutting technology as part of the 4th Industrial Revolution. We don’t want our people to be left behind, hence we are rolling out the Broadband.”
“We are also focusing on the Oceans Economy as we know that many countries in the ASEAN have a strong maritime sector.”
“Another area of focus is the Halaal. And as this province, we want to export Halaal compliant products to Asia.”
“The Automotive Supplier Park is very critical and we want companies from your countries to set up their factories in our park. Toyota is the leading automotive manufacturer and has agreed to be a tenant in our Park.”
