Programme Director,

Director-General of the DMR, Dr. Thibedi Ramontja

Deputy Directors-General

Chairpersons and CEOs of State Owned Entities

Jewellery manufacturers

Emerging entrepreneurs and students

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and gentlemen

I would like to welcome all of you to our inaugural National Jewellery Forum, and to also extend my gratitude to the various organisations whose partnership has enabled the realisation of this important event.  It has been eagerly awaited by all of us.

We are meeting here for these two days to reflect on the jewellery manufacturing industry and how we can stimulate competitiveness and profitability through an integrated process predicated on the entire value chain. I am hoping that at the end of these two days we will share a commonvision for South Africa to become a world-class jewellery hub and together chart a course of action on how we achieve this vision.

Let me start by reflecting on our history as a country, our present situation and our vision going forward. As we all know historically, the South African mineral and mining sector has been deeply racialised, resulting in highly skilled white people, working as engineers and managers, while black people, sourced from the deep rural areas and Southern African Development region (SADC), were kept as unskilled and underpaid labour. There was little or no beneficiation of minerals in SA, the minerals came back as finished products ready for selling. This meant effectively that (1)SA was denied the economic benefits of its minerals and (2) the human capital required for beneficiation was not developed, (3)in addition careers in the sector were hardly known. The mining industry thus created an extremely unequal society, the effects of which are felt even in a post-apartheid South Africa. At this time in our democratic history, the work remains to reverse this trend and excite young SA about the prospects in the sector, build a skilled base of Africans within the mining and minerals sector generally and specifically in the jewellery making industry as an aspect of beneficiation.
“Bantu Education,” a systemic process of deliberately under-developing the Black-African population, excluded them from learning subjects like mathematics, science and other technical subjects. In addition apartheid education did not cater for the learners with creative talent; as a result some of the learners with creative talents dropped out of class and did not complete high school. This trend is still visible today where learners with creativeabilities are often not catered for in the school curriculum and they sometimes drop out of school and swell the ranks of the so called unemployable youth. The current lack of knowledge and skills as well as low levels of entrepreneurship amongst black youth is evidence of the negative impact of the apartheid system of Bantu education. Overall apartheid education educated black people to become job-seekers-we need to change this psyche through developing and nurturing motivated, self-directed young entrepreneurs not job-seekers.
What we have done since the advent of democracy.
Since 1994, the democratic government introduced policies and a legislative framework to promote and accelerate the transformation of the different aspects of society and the economy. The Department of Mineral Resources also developed policies, legislation and various instruments to transform and to develop the mining and mineral sector to its full potential.  
Minerals are a strategic resource with the potential to benefit the entire population through secondary and tertiary mineral-based industries including beneficiation. The term beneficiation describes the various processes of adding value to raw minerals from their extraction through to the sale of finished products to consumers. The beneficiation process includes large-scale and capital-intensive operations like smelting and technologically sophisticated/advanced refining as well as labour intensive activities such as the craft of jewellery. The government has therefore identified mineral beneficiation as having potential to attract new investment, create jobs and thereby reduce the rate of unemployment in South Africa. To this end the Mineral and Mining legislation and policy framework are being reviewed in order to leverage beneficiation as a potential economic growth point. Furthermore, the Mineral Beneficiation Strategy was adopted by Government as policy in 2011.
The minerals beneficiation strategy recognises, at the outset, that South Africa is a country rich in mineral wealth, which provides a mere comparative advantage. This wealth has however not translated into a competitive advantage. The strategy identifies five value chains, one of which is jewellery manufacturing, to demonstrate that comparative advantage can be translated into competitive advantage through a package of well thought interventions to achieve this objective. Jewellery manufacturing should leverage the country’s precious metal and gemstone reserves to position South Africa as a thriving and globally competitive jewellery hub. The strategy is aligned to Government development policies such as the National Development Plan (NDP), the Industrial Policy Action Plan (PAP) and the New Growth Path (NGP), whose overarching objectives are the sustainable and equitable growth of the economy, and it seeks to substantially tackle the proverbial triple evils of poverty, inequality and joblessness. For successful implementation we need intensive coordination and partnership across a number of government departments, stakeholders and business as well as human resourcedevelopment and skills training- these are critical factors for successful implementation!!!!
Where do we want to go?
We want to break the job-seeking mentality and nurture and develop empowered, vibrant, excited self-employed jewellery entrepreneurs who are hopeful about a better life.  We want to promote and stimulate jewellery manufacturing in South Africa-we want to create and develop a world-class jewellery hub.
How do we achieve this?
Research has shown that entrepreneurship plays a critical role in economic development through employment creation, poverty alleviation, wealth re-distribution, innovation, research and development, and improving the competitiveness of industries and countries, to name but a few.   However, 20 years into our democracy, there is little evidence of programmes or initiatives producing entrepreneurial jewellery designers and manufacturers who can create more jobs, meaningfully transform the jewellery manufacturing sector and contribute towards the economic growth of the country.  Furthermore, preliminary research suggests that training opportunities have neither appropriately responded to the needs of prospective employers and markets nor created a critical mass of sustainable and competitive jewellery manufacturing entrepreneurs. We must break out of this.

At the heart of achieving our intended objectives is a foundation of appropriate skills development interventions to underpin both technical and business skills to break through the deep rooted cycle of lack of success. Indeed, providing access to entrepreneurship education has been shown as important in developing a ‘pipeline’ of potential entrepreneurs. To this end, most countries have aggressively sought to create an enabling environment for the small business sector through legislation, regulation and policy. Thus, theextent to which the mining and minerals sector will meaningfully contribute to the country’s national interest of job creation will largely be influenced by the country’s entrepreneurial climate. The development and support of entrepreneurs is thus key in this bold undertaking we are makingtoday. This will be supported by three pillars namely, skills development and training, value chain analysis and entrepreneurial support. These three pillars are intended to provide entrepreneurswith the necessary skills and spirit to enable them to do the following: produce world-class African jewellery pieces, engage on an equal footing with partners both domestic and international, access and maintain markets domestically and internationally and to be able to readily access raw materials and requisite finance.

These objectives have been developed through a collaborative effort between the State and industry, drawing from international and domestic experience, and leveraging existing programmes in a more coordinated manner aimed at reinvigorating the domestic industry. Our conceptualisation further recognises that South Africa operates within a global political and economic environment. We will therefore seek to build upon the various agreements we have, to support this initiative and call on all our partners to support us in this endeavour.
This National Jewellery Forum is therefore the first part of a process aimed achieving our vision - which I hope we all share. We have to work together on this vision positioning South Africa to be a world-class jewellery hub!!!This event presents a platform for stakeholders to engage and make inputs into Government’s conceptualization of what it would take for South Africa to have a competitive jewellery sector.

A key outcome of this event will be a reference group that will draft a roadmap designed to deliver this vision both seamlessly and expeditiously. The process of collaborative engagement will not end with this event, but will be part of a set of broader processes anchored in the framework provided by the Beneficiation Strategy, which is designed to support increased domestic mineral beneficiation and to contribute towards the national industrialisation objective.

In conclusion I would like to emphasize the strategic importance of coordination and collaboration between the relevant government departments, stakeholders in the Jewellery value chain and experts in the fields to form a reference group on training and education, economic opportunities and related matters. This committee should amongst others, do a SWOT analysis of what is currently on offer, engage with past students to get qualitatively what their challenges are and what needs to be done. I would like us to meet soon after to engage with the reference group to hear what the plan is going forward.

It is imperative that programmes such as this one succeed, in order to safeguard the continued journey towards a South Africa whose citizenry is free from poverty, inequality and unemployment. As government, we strive to develop and nurture a new psyche of self-directed, enthused and motivated young entrepreneurs as envisioned in our collective blueprint for the future, theNational Development Plan.

Finally, ladies and gentlemen, this forum is a first step towards a wellcoordinated approach to become a globally competitive jewellery manufacturing hub. I would like to end with a quote from one this country’s great statesmen, Mr. Nelson Mandela, who said “It always seems impossible until it is done”.  This should inspire us to strengthen our resolve in striving to achieve the vision of creating a world-class jewellery hub by unleashing our massive mineral wealth and human capital potential.



I wish you all well as you deliberate over these matters during the next two days.



I thank you.