Business Day
*Patel to unveil economic growth plan* *Linda Ensor and Sam Mkokeli, Business Day, Johannesburg, 23 November 2010*LONG-awaited details of the government's new economic growth path will emerge on Tuesday when Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel releases details of the plan, probably in Parliament.
Mr Patel revealed the broad outlines last month after submitting it to a cabinet meeting, which approved it. He said the fully fledged report would be released only once the government's social partners had been briefed on it.
Mr Patel and his deputy minister, Enoch Godongwana, gave the Congress of South African Trade Unions' (Cosatu's) central executive committee a glimpse of the document yesterday.
The minister told the federation leaders that the government had placed employment targeting at the centre of its policy direction.
There is disagreement over whether employment should be the target of economic policy, moving away from the mechanism where macroeconomic policy is concerned mainly with inflation.
The full growth path report has been keenly awaited, as it will provide details of the concrete measures the government will adopt to achieve its overall objective of creating about 5-million jobs over the next 10 years and reducing the unemployment rate from 25% to 15%.
Mr Patel had promised that the government was working hard developing "bold policies" that needed implementation.
He told the media last month the plan would include a pact between business and labour on wages, savings and prices as well as a prudent fiscal policy of deficit reduction.
It would also focus on the promotion of six key economic sectors, a major review of black economic empowerment and active monetary policy interventions to achieve a more competitive exchange rate.
The plan would aim to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs through the greening of the economy and through local production for the government's infrastructure programmes and state-owned enterprises. A key element of the plan, Mr Patel said, was to increase productivity to push the economy on to a higher growth path.
Winning the buy-in of labour for the proposals will be difficult, however, as the trade union federation is on record as being opposed to any talk of a pact on wages, which are already too low.
Cosatu insisted that executive pay and bonuses should be cut. General secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has said that the federation is willing to engage in initiatives to raise productivity and enhance competitiveness.
*From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=127503* ** -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
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