Atlas Studios, Milpark, Johannesburg, 19 February 2005
Chairperson of Proudly South African, Tim Modise,
Honourable Minister of Trade and Industry, Mandisi Mpahlwa,
Distinguished Proudly South African Board Members,
Awards Sponsor and Chief Executive Officer, Wesbank, Ronnie Watson,
Founder Sponsors of Proudly South African,
Finalists in the Proudly South African Homegrown Awards,
Proudly South African members,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen:
I am truly delighted to join you at tonight's Proudly South African Homegrown Awards Ceremony, which salutes outstanding, enterprising and patriotic South Africans who so passionately champion the attributes of our beautiful country.
It is most fitting that we are gathered here at Atlas Studios, a member of the Proudly South African community and a fine example of South African creativity and entrepreneurship. We thank Atlas Studios for hosting the Awards Ceremony this evening.
The Proudly South African campaign has begun to transform the way we chart the course and set the pace of our journey to prosperity and development in this vibrant and enterprising land.
When the members of the Proudly South African community market their goods and services at home and abroad, they do so within the context of a new paradigm: Lift as you rise. Among other things, your efforts as you conduct yourselves in a Proudly South African manner must and will contribute most significantly toward eliminating the blight of poverty in this country.
In the past, marketing South Africa entailed ignoring and obscuring the misery of millions in the vain hope that no one would notice that our shiny products were the fruit of exploited labour and systematic deprivation.
Those of us who have elected to wear the insignia of the Proudly South African campaign have chosen to commit ourselves to building the new South Africa free of such systematic deprivation.
Since its launch, the Proudly South African campaign has gathered impressive momentum. I am pleased to learn that you are succeeding in harnessing the vigour, pride and creativity of an increasing number of South Africans determined to realise the astonishing potential of our country.
There are thousands of businesses and companies of all types and sizes in our country. While all share the natural desire for profit, some distinguish themselves by consciously generating other innovative paths to prosperity: creating and improving opportunities for women, mentoring and empowering informal and early-stage businesses, encouraging job creation and harnessing the striking potential of the involvement and participation of employees.
It is encouraging to learn that a company which carries the Proudly South African symbol meets and often surpasses the rigorous standards set by its mission with regard to the level of local content, product quality and labour practices. But there is a deeper and more significant aspect to this praiseworthy behaviour.
By widening the scope of their wealth-creating enterprises to encompass the energies of the poor and marginalised, they make a bold statement about the exigencies of making profit in a developing economy. They also imbibe the salutary lesson that the wealth of nations vests in all the people, and not a select few. It is simultaneously a statement of origin and of an admirable purpose for its endeavours.
The Proudly South African symbol imbues companies who carry it on their corporate insignia with an optimistic and uplifting national identity; it is brand-building with a larger purpose than the narrow confines of the single bottom line. Indeed, the clarion call to business around the world is to report on the triple bottom line, namely, profitability, good corporate governance and corporate social responsibility.
It is also an exhortation to businesses that subscribe to the logic of the economics of plenty and the absence of scarcity. These companies infuse their endeavours with these precepts and provide their employees with a unifying motivation for their labour, namely, creating a better life for all.
I believe, Ladies and Gentlemen, that our entrepreneurs must and will make a great contribution to the identity and prosperity we seek as a nation.
These entrepreneurs range from the roadside hawker selling her wares, to the engineer with a technological breakthrough, all of whom, assisted by a conducive and stable environment, create wealth and value for themselves and for others.
To succeed, the enterprising business needs to build communities of workers, customers, partners and shareholders. In this endeavour it finds common cause with those in our country who to whom the notions of community, leadership and excellence are inseparable.
The future of our nation will be built not only by committees and cabinets alone, but by individuals such as those we honour here this evening and others, who, by dint of creative intuition and vital imagination, re-draw the maps and re-write the rules.
Tonight, at this Awards ceremony, we find in our midst South Africans united in their common purpose to create and build a better South Africa for all who live in it.
Created as a National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) initiative emanating from the Presidential Job Summit in 1998, and driven by the NEDLAC constituencies of government, labour, business and civil society, the campaign intelligently leverages the social contract among NEDLAC's constituents to ensure its effectiveness and success.
The campaign's founder sponsors, most of whom are here this evening, have nailed their colours to the Proudly South African mast and helped the campaign amplify its message from its crucial early stages, testimony to their confidence in the South African economy. The Department of Trade and Industry also rose to the occasion by providing strategic and financial support at the inception of the campaign and continues to support and facilitate its many successes.
I am told that Proudly South African has over 2 114 member companies and organisations and more than 5 000 consumer products and services have been accredited to carry this striking symbol. It is a source of national pride that rapid membership growth makes Proudly South African the largest campaign of its kind anywhere in the world.
The quality of the products carrying the Proudly South African symbol is well-known and reciprocated by local and international consumers' growing confidence in the brand. We are encouraged by the healthy appetite for South African books, fashion, foods and technology, which says much about the development of our sense of self.
Through you, we now have a robust agency to stimulate demand for our products, locally and internationally, thereby fulfilling a primary campaign objective of protecting and creating jobs. It is a market truism that international confidence in our products will grow in tandem with our own confidence in them. The rules of the global economy, skewed as they are, nevertheless require of us to assertively demonstrate this confidence in our own products, by buying them ourselves.
While the number of businesses of all sizes joining the Proudly South African campaign is encouraging, it is particularly gratifying to see that more than 75% of the members are SMME's. One of government's objectives is to increase the growth of these businesses and their contribution to GDP, and we are confident of the benefits of growth and profitability that Proudly South African membership brings to small and medium enterprises.
Organised business institutions need to reflect on what more they can do to assist the campaign to ensure its continued stability and success. I am aware that the DTI and Proudly South African have engaged various industry Export Councils to develop strategies to promote responsible and appropriate use of the Proudly South African brand in export markets.
This engagement should be actively pursued. As we have already noted, the protection and enhancement of our brand and of our products and services, is a function of our own confidence in their demonstrable strengths. Our confidence in the South African brand is based on our honest assessment of who we are and our place in the world. Proudly South African must continue to represent this confidence, based on the actual realisation of the goals we set ourselves when we decided on the Proudly South African Campaign.
How we behave as South Africans in a global society, how rigorously we celebrate democracy and encourage debate, how loyal we are to our country and, more specifically, how we incorporate these notions and values into our businesses and even in our personal lives, are the benchmarks by which we are measured by those we serve and who buy our products.
What that means is that we support our sports' teams especially passionately when they lose, not only when they win, that we celebrate success but accept failure as a challenge to do better, that we strive to be the best in all our endeavours and that we tell everyone, as often as we can, when we do so.
Tonight, I have witnessed Proudly South African companies and the people behind them being the best they can be. We are inspired by the success of those among us who demonstrate a level of diligence that arises from enlightened self-interest, informed by their sense of responsibility both to ourselves and to those communities in our midst. The Proudly South African mission is an exhortation to others to follow this path because the tide of our history has turned.
Your endeavours must contribute to the consolidation of a stable, secure and just political economy in our beloved country. Only then can we convince our fellow South Africans and the people of the world that South Africa is a country not just alive with possibility, but certain of its progress.
I congratulate all the finalists and the winners of tonight's awards and applaud your achievements. You embody the spirit of the great South African enterprise in which we are all engaged and represent our innate desire as a nation to not only to overcome our dreadful past but to build a bright future for this and future generations. I wish you all much success in your future endeavours and stand ready to support your sterling efforts.
Thank you.