President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday threw down the gauntlet and challenged the Members of Parliament and South Africans at large to buy locally made products in order to boost the ailing local economy and create jobs.
Delivering the state-of-the-nation address in Parliament, Ramaphosa boasted that the suit, shirt and tie he was wearing were all made locally.
He said that his government will stimulate local demand and grow South African manufacturing by making sure the ‘Buy Local’ campaign is everywhere and ever-present.
"We call on all South Africans to deliberately and consistently buy locally-made goods. The suit, the shirt and the tie I am wearing today was locally made by South African textile workers working at the House of Monatic here in Salt River, Cape Town," Ramaphosa said.
"Let us all buy locally-made goods to drive up demand in our economy. Within this next year, we seek to conclude agreements with retailers to stock more South African goods on their shelves and to actively promote the great products made by South African hands."
Ramaphosa said that these measures were underpinned by the government's strong commitment to a macroeconomic and fiscal policy framework that will continue to boost confidence and investment.
The South African economy slumped sharply in the first three months of 2019, contracting by 3.2 percent as seven of the 10 industries took a knock, with manufacturing being in the top three contributors to the fall.
The 3.2 percent decline is the biggest quarterly fall in economic activity since the first quarter of 2009, when the economy – under strain from the global financial crisis – tumbled by 6.1 percent.
- African News Agency (ANA)
