wblyth's blog

Most of this week was taken up with our trade mission to Mozambique - we wanted to take a firsthand look at the implications of the big gas discoveries in the north of the country.  About 12 SAOGA members joined up with 5 or so members of Abderdeen Chamber of Commerce's Africa Business Centre (ABC) and set off for 4 days in Mozambique - some of the ABC guys then came to Cape Town for 2 days to find out more about the opportunities here.

Industry often expresses concern about the serious gap between FET College education output and the skills need of industry.  As technology advances the gap will continue to increase and speculations about it will continue. Little has been done to address the problem thus far.

Two unique pilot projects where industry and government seek to make a difference, are addressing the alleged disconnect head on.

Earlier this week the industry was informed by Transnet/NPA that the long process of concessioning the major ship repair facilities in our ports has been withdrawn.  A variety of reasons were advanced but from my perspective the critical issue seems to have been that the industry bidders and Transnet could not come to financial terms that worked for both parties. 

Peter Hurst and his team at AddedAsset have been driving our Trade and Export Development programme.  As part of this programme they have been running "export readiness diagnostics" with a number of members.  These are there followed up with a feedback session with the companies. We've been getting good feedback on the value that this process has been adding to the companies that have participated so far - congratulations to Peter and the team!  A quick note from Wolfgang at Isologic:>>

Dear Gentleman

Much of this week has been involved with the Biannual Oil & Gas Africa event at CTICC.  Congratulations and thanks to John Victor and his team at Fair Consultants for once again pulling this together on behalf of all of us in the local sector.  This is the 5th edition of this conference and expo to showcase the local industry.

Welcome to the first edition of our new format Newsletter - I hope you will enjoy it.  It will come weekly and will include a roundup of the key news and events in the sector and at SAOGA.  We have also designed it to be used as a handy entry to information on our website as we recognise that many of our stakeholders find it easier to work from mail in their inbox than go to our website.

The development of entrepreneurs and small business remains a major contributor to job creation in South Africa.  Foreign direct investment is critical to the economy and also for local employment opportunities.  However, some quick wins for GDP growth, job retention and job creation can come from a far greater focus on export development.

A test blog entry for the new newsletter format

March is a busy month at SAOGA: finishing off the business planning process, getting ready for the annual audit, collating information for the reports we submit to funders and so on - the administrative stuff I'm sure we all grudgingly do in the process of keeping our organisations afloat to do the real work they are purposed to do.  Fortunately March also had a few significant events of consequence to the industry.