The Hindu Business Line : South Africa keen to take leaf out of Indian experience

South Africa, which wants to broadbase industrial development in that country, looks to learn from the Indian growth model that has helped broaden the economic development particularly among the rural masses.

The country is also keen to learn from the success of Brazil and China that have achieved success in spreading industrial development, according to Mr Charles A. Wyeth, Executive Manager, Small Enterprise Development Agency, South Africa (SEDA).

Speaking to the media here, after interacting with the Coimbatore District Small Industries Association (Codissia) members, he said the South African Government was focussed on the development of small enterprises with a view to generating largescale employment. Some of the issues South Africa faced were similar to what India had like high population and poverty. The intermediation made by the Indian Government over the years had helped in addressing the issue of poverty alleviation through employment generation on a largescale and the South African Government was keen to replicate the success of the Indian experiment in that country.

Economic growth

Mr Wyeth pointed out that most of the big industrial units in South Africa were either MNCs or South African companies owned by select families. Because of the technological development, there was jobless growth and the big industries were not creating any additional jobs. Till recently, the people in South Africa were looking at the economic development model of countries like the US, UK or EU member countries. But the Government now wanted to learn from the economic success of India, China and Brazil to fast track its own growth on a wider scale to reach out to a larger segment of the society.

He said the National Small Industries Corporation of India (NSIC) had played a crucial role in the development of small industries. Though it had enjoyed Government support during its formative years, it has now become a successful catalyst of economic development without depending on Government support. South Africa was keen to learn from the NSIC experiment. The SEDA was formed by the Department of Trade and Industry in December 2004 to assist in the growth of small industries in South Africa.

Tri-nation Summit

South Africa would play host shortly to a tri-nation summit in which India and Brazil also would participate at which issues like learning from each other's experience and sharing of technology would be discussed, Mr Wyeth said.

Mr K. Balachandran, President, Codissia, said that a team from South Africa was expected to visit the agriculture exhibition to be organised by Codissia in September. The South African team was impressed with the development of the SSI sector in Coimbatore and Codissia gave a profile of the success of SSIs in fields like engineering, plastic industries etc.

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