ECONOMY
'Service sector can boost growth'
Posted Thu, 08 Dec 2005
If South Africa hoped to raise its economic growth rate to six
percent it should focus on expanding its service sector, the
Department of Trade and Industry said on Wednesday.
"It is our belief that such growth is largely going to come from
the area of services. Manufacturing, if it's not declining it's
stagnant," said Raymond Ngcobo, head of strategic competitiveness
at the DTI.
Seventy percent of South Africa's gross domestic product (GDP)
and about 68 percent of its employment came from the service
sector, which had huge "untapped potential", said Emmanuel Barreto
a senior advisor for the Geneva-based International Trade Centre
(ITC).
Barreto was speaking ahead of a three-day conference in
Johannesburg aimed at promoting the service sector in the Southern
African Development Community (SADC) region.
"It [the service sector] is the most rapidly growing area in
world trade at the moment," said Peter Walters, ITC director of
products and market
development.
Walters said companies in the SADC region would be in a better
position when applying for tenders if they "bundled" their bids.
Ngcobo acknowledged that the high price of telecommunications in
South Africa was a major obstacle to the growth of the service
sector.
He said the government was rooting out anti-competitive
behaviour and investing in service related infrastructure to
support this sector.
Sapa
| 
