The Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI’s) plans for the development of black industrialists are gaining traction, with the intention to launch the Black Industrialists Development Programme within a month, DTI director-general Lionel October said on Wednesday.

The DTI was unpacking its “very early draft” of the Black Industrialists Policy Framework at the DTI-hosted Black Industrialists Indaba, in Midrand, where it aimed to collate government and stakeholder input into a comprehensive policy document for Cabinet approval as soon as possible.

The Black Industrialists Development Programme, first tabled in August last year, aimed to create more than 100 black industrialists within three years and put black industrialists at the forefront of South Africa’s industrialisation efforts.

The policy would also align to South Africa’s Industrial Policy Action Plan and its current black economic-empowerment programme, while unlocking financial and nonfinancial support exclusively for black industrialists, who were expected to drive the country’s industrialisation ambitions.

“We are in [Operation] Phakisa mode, so this [policy for the Black Industrialists Development] Programme will be finalised in a month … [and] the programme must start running [immediately],” he said.

“We will have a concrete [policy-driven] support package [for existing and emerging black industrialists],” October said of the policy that had a “golden triangle” of three driving forces, namely the State, education and training institutions and the private sector.