Trade and Industry Minister, Rob Davies, said transformation and economic inclusion in the automotive sector was critical in ensuring that more opportunities were created for black suppliers.
Davies addressed the media Thursday at the first Volkswagen South Africa Black Owned Supplier's Day, where 48 selected suppliers were able to showcase their products to industry players.
The Minister said government needed to ensure that there was simaltaneous growth and transformation of the automotive sector.
Davies said government has policies in place, such as the Industrial Policy Action Plan, to encourage manufacturers to develop and support black suppliers.
He said that the VWSA Black Supplier's Day was an opportunity to identify the capacity and potential of black owned companies.
"Some of the black suppliers are skilled but I think there is potential for many others to become skilled and I think the display today is showing us that there are black owned companies atr different levels of capacity that are capable of developing and becoming competitive suppliers in the automative sector," Davies said.
"As government we have been supporting the idea of this for a long time and in the new BEE codes, there will be a requirement that all automotive companies that are going to receive benefits from government under the Automotive Investment Scheme are going to have to be recognised somewhere on the BEE score card and in terms of the architecture of the new codes that will mean they will have to be involved in enterprise and supply development."
"We want to encourage OEM's to work to develop and support and incubate and whatever else it takes black suppliers in the automotive sector, as I say I think we can see there is capacity. This is also an opportunity to try and develop some sort of a register of who is who and who is capable not comprehensive...it's a journey as government we believe we have to embark on because there are two challenges that are interlinked in this country we got to industrialise and re-industrialise the automotive sector," Davies added.
Meanwhile, VWSA Managing Director, Thomas Schaefer, said that Black Owned Supplier's Day showed that there was a lot of interest in getting black owned suppliers in South Africa on the road and profitability.
VWSA said 430 companies had applied to be part of the day but just 48 were selected from a set of criteria.
Schaefer said it was hoped that the exhibitors would be able to kick-on from here and grow their businesses.
"Today is a platform. We managed to find, as you can say, only 48. These 48 companies will now move on. We will work with them, we will hope that they will get into maybe Tier 2 or Tier 3 (supplier levels) and may be some of them into Tier 1. You saw some really, really good examples inside so it's more about creating a platform so that we can get more of them in this industry," he said.
"The concept of this pioneering suppliers' day in our industry originates from Volkswagen's determination to expand its business to black-owned suppliers. This will ensure that we continue to support the economic transformation in South Africa," Schaefer said.
"Volkswagen takes the issue of procurement from black-owned suppliers as a priority from both a moral and legislative compliance perspective.
"We understand government's priority elements of the BBBEE codes and the drive for ownership. We, however, have difficulty complying with the Enterprise and Supplier Development element set out in the recently-revised BBBEE mandate."
"This is not because we do not want to, but because it is virtually impossible given the scarcity of black-owned suppliers to the local automotive industry. In our case, this is compounded by our high level of local content in the manufacture of Polo and Polo Vivo," explained Schaefer.
"Today is the start of a new beginning that will allow us to increase the spread of our own and the industries' supplier base, as well as grow the number of suppliers that meet the BBBEE criteria for the Enterprise and Supplier Development element," Schaefer said.
