Essays

Small Business Ministry Should Learn by Doing

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Strategy before structure – President Jacob Zuma should heed this guideline when considering a small business ministry. The idea of creating a small business ministry was given strong support on the election campaign trail by …

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BRICS – Total Entrepreneurial Activity

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Brics - Entrepreneurial activity bubble map

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) provides a basis for comparing entrepreneurial activity, aspirations and intentions globally. The chart below shows the Total early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA). TEA is defined as

TEA = Percentage of 18-64 population who are either a nascent entrepreneur or owner-manager of a new business

The data shows that there is a gap between South Africa which is has moderate economic growth, and Brazil, India and China which have significantly higher economic growth rates in terms of Total Entrepreneurial Activity. (Curiously, Russia has high growth rates but low TEA rate). The data however suggests that South Africa may be catching up, with these high growth countries.

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South Africa Lags Behind On Economic Growth

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Does the MTBPS have the right toolkit?

The chart and table below shows that South Africa is likely to lag behind it’s peers in emerging markets and developing countries in terms of economic growth. There are many reasons for this, with Minister Gordhan arguing in the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement with reference to meeting the challenges that we face:

For us as a nation to achieve this ambition requires deep-rooted transformation of our economy that removes the many barriers to growth and development

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Youth subsidy – Bringing education into the picture

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The debate on youth subsidy has gathered pace. The arguments for a youth subsidy consist of two major arguments.
First, the high rates of unemployment amongst youth are exceedingly worrying. As shown in a previous chart on Zapreneur. The key features of the unemployment data by age, show that:
The key features of the data include that:

  • The biggest proportion of unemployed are concentrated in the age groups 15-24 years (29.5%) and 25-34 years (42.8%).
  • Unemployment for those 34 years old and younger accounts for 72,3% of unemployed South Africans.

Youth unemployment thus is a serious challenge, and perhaps the defining challenge that we face.

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