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May 27 2012 11:21
There's a price war raging between South Africa's cellphone networks after Cell C lowered the rates of its prepaid calls by more than 34%.
May 27 2012 11:49
The country's 200 000-odd Tupperware agents are angry about the counterfeit products being sold as the real McCoy.
May 27 2012 13:09
The oversupply of golf estates has claimed another victim.
Cape Town - Trevor Manuel, Minister of Planning in the President's Office, has defended plans for large-scale job creation via the expanded public works programme.
The job creation targets outlined by President Jacob Zuma for this programme in his State of the Nation speech last week have been broadly criticised as unrealistic and unsustainable.
In the ensuing debate on the speech Manuel said the intention was not to create permanent jobs, but an emergency measure to stand between poor families and absolute starvation.
According to Manuel, people employed within the programme would earn more than most farm workers do.
Apart from keeping families alive and offering training opportunities, the programme would provide infrastructure or essential services, Manuel explained.
No promises were made about immediate jobs in the industrial or services sectors. This is the reality, despite what self-appointed analysts and opposition politicians might say, Manuel declared.
With regard to the recession Manuel said he expected better economic growth data by year-end, thanks to sustained growth in infrastructure expenditure, state consumption, improved raw material prices and lower interest rates.
Manuel, who earlier this year denied that the country was in a recession, said the GDP figures that had been announced for the first quarter had been considerably weaker than expected.
He pointed out that economic activity in the developed as well as the developing world had stabilised in past weeks. In some cases it had even improved, such as in China where industrial manufacturing had sharply risen in the first quarter after the steep decline in the fourth quarter of last year
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) adjusted its global growth forecast downwards six times last year, and another three times this year.
By April the IMF had expected that the global economy would contract 1.3% this year. Advanced economies would shed 3.8% this year and show no growth in 2010.
- Sake24.com
For more business news in Afrikaans, go to Sake24.com.