Buy local to create jobs, pleads Davies

Johannesburg -South Africans must be encouraged to buy local products, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said on Tuesday.

"South African manufacturers are known for manufacturing goods of high quality at a good price and we... encourage people to buy those products in preference to others which are available," he said at the launch of the Buy SA Back campaign in Sandton.

"This has significance in terms of job creation, revenue, service delivery and all of the things that we need to do to ensure that South African consumers can continue to buy."

He said this was the first phase of the campaign which was being launched and other phases would follow later.

"We decided to run with this initial phase of the campaign before the festive season... because we want to try to impress on our consumers and stakeholders in the private and public sector the importance of buying locally manufactured goods."

Buy SA Back was an initiative of the department, the Manufacturing Circle, and Proudly South African. The tag line for the campaign was "Create jobs. Secure our future". Theatre actor John Kani would be the face of the campaign.

Davies appealed to the private sector to help expand the campaign by registering its interest and buying into it.

"[This is] so that the campaign does not end in warm fuzzy feelings but will change buyer behaviour, whether the buyer is the average consumer, or the private or public sector procurer," he said.

The campaign was in line with the approaches taken by other countries around the world in support of domestic economies with an emphasis on manufacturing.

A lot had been done in South Africa through policy interventions, but more needed to be done, said Davies.

Three elements were needed. The first was a combined effort between government and its social partners to change national sentiment and create a national mood to "buy back South Africa".

Davies emphasised that buying local was not just about consumers buying locally manufactured goods, but also about companies, especially large retailers with large procurement budgets, supporting local manufacturers.

"It should be evident that we are not expecting local households who are feeling the pinch to be out of pocket because they have purchased more expensive, uncompetitive, local goods," he said.

"We are trying to encourage and support localisation. We also encourage and support raising competitiveness."

Proudly SA was urging people, especially over Christmas, to buy locally and help boost the local economy and contribute towards job creation.

"We’re asking for a commitment from big business, corporations and even supermarket chains to source as many locally made products as possible," Proudly South African CEO Leslie Sedibe said.

"As South Africans we need to support local manufacturers to ensure the country doesn’t become a warehouse for imported products or a dumping ground for inferior goods that the rest of the world doesn’t want."