Publications
Partners
Pretoria - South Africa must target 7% economic growth for a generation to be able to deliver jobs and prosperity and lift millions out of poverty, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Tuesday.
"For us as a nation to achieve this ambition requires deep-rooted transformation of our economy that removes the many barriers to growth and development," said Gordhan during his third medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS).
Gordhan pointed out that the health department has achieved significant cost savings in anti-retroviral procurement, while the education department has had similar success with the implementation of centralised publication and distribution of textbooks to schools.
The Jobs Fund has received 2 651 applications since it was launched in June this year and the Investment Committee has approved projects with a grant allocation of R352m and a projected creation of 115 226 jobs.
Gordhan noted that microeconomic reforms such as reducing red tape and improving competition were at the heart of structural reform.
An example of this was that SA would shortly be linked to the rest of the world by five competing fibre-optic submarine cable systems, after having only one such system recently.
