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Nov 23, 2023 | 
vutivibusiness.co.za | Anna Majavu
By: Anna MajavuHigh interest and inflation rates, a lack of funding, and a heavy tax burden are among the biggest problems facing South African SMMEs, new research has found. Ayanda Sibiya, Johan van der Westhuizen, and Bongani Sibiya of the Vaal University of Technology wrote this month in the African Journal of Inter/Multidisciplinary Studies that SMMEs needed more funding options.
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Nov 23, 2023 | 
vutivibusiness.co.za | Anna Majavu
By: Anna MajavuInnovative small businesses that use local materials to design furniture and other useful products can apply for two new grants and low-interest loans from the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) and the National Empowerment Fund (NEF). The TIA, based in the Department of Science and Innovation, has announced a second round of funding for “grassroots innovators” who invent products that solve a South African problem.
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Nov 16, 2023 | 
vutivibusiness.co.za | Anna Majavu
By: Anna MajavuThe playing field has not yet been levelled for black-owned SMMEs who export agricultural products to the European Union and the United Kingdom duty-free. South Africa has trade agreements with the EU and the UK that allow certain agricultural products to enter these countries at reduced or no duties or partially duty-free rates under preferential Tariff Rate Quotas.
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Nov 9, 2023 | 
vutivibusiness.co.za | Anna Majavu
By: Anna MajavuNew research has found that small-town SMMEs near major state-owned game reserves are struggling to get work from these big parks, even though this work is one of the only ways that rural entrepreneurs can get their small businesses off the ground.
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Nov 9, 2023 | 
vutivibusiness.co.za | Anna Majavu
By: Anna MajavuWhile large corporations can make social problems worse with their “bad business practices”, SMMEs are often at the forefront of creating jobs and “fostering social and political justice” in South Africa. Trisha Ramsuraj of the Durban University of Technology’s Department of Information and Corporate Management researched how SMMES were “now driving economic growth and solving social issues in a setting where big businesses and governments appear to be doing very little”.
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Nov 5, 2023 | 
vutivibusiness.co.za | Anna Majavu
By: Anna MajavuThe government must start using blockchain to minimise corruption in tendering and give SMMEs a fair chance of getting into its procurement supply chains, according to new research. The research by Edzai Kademeteme and Stella Bvuma of the University of Johannesburg said that many departments were still using manual paper-based procurement systems with few electronic features, leaving contracts with SMMEs wide open to human interference and corruption.
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Nov 2, 2023 | 
vutivibusiness.co.za | Anna Majavu
By: Anna MajavuSmall businesses are not one of the government’s “expenditure priorities” and were sidelined again in Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) on Wednesday.
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Oct 31, 2023 | 
vutivibusiness.co.za | Anna Majavu
By: Anna MajavuSouth Africa exports about R3 billion worth of locally made bandages, syringes, needles, catheters and other medical consumables every year, but imports over R7 billion worth of other medical devices. A recent Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) seminar in Johannesburg heard that the manufacturing of medical devices in South Africa was limited, with less than 5% of local players involved.
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Oct 27, 2023 | 
vutivibusiness.co.za | Anna Majavu
By: Anna MajavuProudly South African’s Happy MaKhumalo Ngidi is determined to use her role as chief marketer at the country’s foremost marketing campaign to give ordinary people a sense of “belonging and dignity”, and fix the social problems caused by the skyrocketing rate of unemployment. The campaign exists to connect locally owned businesses, many of them SMMEs, to markets. Ngidi believes it can make a huge difference in creating more employment and sustaining the jobs that already exist.
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Oct 24, 2023 | 
vutivibusiness.co.za | Anna Majavu
By: Anna MajavuParliament’s Portfolio Committee on Small Business Development says it is pleased with the performance of the government’s Small Business portfolio this year, even though it also has a long list of problems that need to be fixed. The government’s Small Business portfolio is made up of the Department of Small Business Development (DSBD), the Small Enterprise Finance Agency (Sefa), and the Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda).
