Quote Originally Posted by Blurock View Post
There are certain things that have to be imported, but most things can be sourced from local manufacturers or suppliers. By supporting local industry, one is preserving local jobs as well as the skills to keep that industry going. Once we lose those skills we will never get it back. The problem with local industry is that we do not have the required volumes to be really competitive. If we all support local industries, it may eventually happen. Manufacturers should also look at their quality and aim to export as that will give them critical mass to be truly competitive.

Quality should be a much higher consideration as it will be cheaper in the long run. Cheap, low quality imports are devastating to any economy as it destroys all the economic principles. The poor people suffer most as they cannot afford the better quality and then opt for a cheaper alternative which does not last and has to be replaced soon. So they end up paying over and over to replace the same thing. As they say in Afrikaans "goedkoop is duur koop".
I'm going to whisper this because its probably not PC on this site, but I reckon there is some value in the BBEEE concept. I would just change two things:

1) PDI should become RDI - Recently Disadvantaged Individuals, so anybody who say 5 years ago was below a certain economic level. Take race out of entirely. It will of course still cover mainly the black population so no real change. Except the tenderpreneurs and the black elite will now be excluded - and rightly so. It will now function to genuinely give those who need it that slight advantage and act in a small way as a redistribution of wealth - but only to those actually working for it.

2) Give points for local content and penalise for imported content. I have serious doubts about the international business communities push for "free trade". I think a balance is necessary. Its not possible to compete against countries with huge local markets, established industries or those with virtually no labour laws. The playing fields are quite simply not level. So lets give local business an advantage. Lets not become over protective and uncompetitive, so some international competition should be allowed, but the inequalities need to be evened out a bit.

Points for educating and training, and community development remain good concepts.