E-commerce: COSATU calls for local industry to be promoted

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has taken note of the e-commerce Direction issued by the Department of Trade, Industry & Competition (DTIC) on 14 May 2020. The Direction sets out which goods can be bought via ecommerce, under Lockdown Stage 4 conditions.

While we welcome the clarity, we caution that this cannot and should never be at the expense of local procurement.

It is important that, in whatever we do, we promote local industrialization through increased local procurement, consistent with the declarations of previous Jobs Summits.

We must guard against converting South Africa into a huge warehouse of imported finished foreign goods, typical of previous colonial patterns of trade.

We call for future Directions to explicitly prioritise the promotion of local procurement, to help build domestic industrialisation and to safeguard local jobs.

Issued by COSATU
 Sizwe Pamla (Cosatu National Spokesperson)

Tel: 011 339 4911
Fax: 011 339 5080
Cell: 060 975 6794