OVERVIEW OF NEDLAC ACTIVITIES

Activities at Nedlac in the first quarter were severely curtailed by the available funds for holding meetings.

Nedlac's financial year runs from April to March. As readers will be aware from last year's newsletters, 2002 was a very busy year for Nedlac, with the institution hosting several additional processes, such as discussions running up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development; the Financial Sector Summit, the ICT sector summit, and various Section 77 notices.

Unfortunately, Nedlac's budget is fixed, so with these processes having taken up large chunks of the available funds, other processes had to be put on hold in order for the institution not to run a budget deficit. Processes have been underway to address this problem in future, although it will always be difficult for Nedlac to predict in advance what issues are likely to require social dialogue, and how long it will take to reach consensus between the parties.

Draft National Agreement on the Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS

At the April Management Committee meeting, Government reported that the task team that had been working within government in relation to the draft National Agreement on HIV/AIDS had completed its work. It was agreed that a meeting of the Nedlac task team should be convened as soon as possible in order to take the process forward.

DEVELOPMENT CHAMBER

The Development Chamber will hold its first meeting for the year on April 24, after which a clearer picture will be available of the issues that are going to occupy its agenda for the year.

Processes that have already been underway have included discussions on:

Property Rates Bill Water Services White Paper Co-operatives - a joint task team with the Trade and Industry Chamber. Government has tabled a co-operative development policy document for discussion and a national consultative workshop on the policy was held on 10-12 March 2003.

LABOUR MARKET CHAMBER

The Labour Market Chamber will hold its second meeting of the year on 8th May. Items on the agenda will include:

Report from government on the tabling of regulations relating to the new Immigration Act

• National Productivity Institute research into a Productivity Accord
• Progress report on the Social Plan
• Ratification of the ILO Maternity Protection Convention
• Future of the Labour Court and Labour Appeal Court

PUBLIC FINANCE AND MONETARY POLICY CHAMBER

The Chamber will hold a series of meetings over the next few months, beginning with the topic of inflationtargeting, including discussing government policy on remuneration as a sub topic of inflation targeting, as well as school fees. Subsequent chamber meetings will discuss the Basic Income Grant and Taxation.

Pension funds

The Executive Council meeting of 28 February 2003 agreed that a conference for Pension Fund Trustees should be arranged.

Financial sector transformation

The post-Financial Sector Summit process has been continuing at a steady pace, with discussions with the steering committee on a number of issues. It has been agreed that a workshop on Development Finance Institutions will be held.

Budget

The Minister of Finance presented the 2003-4 budget to the Executive Council meeting of 28 February 2003. The Executive Council agreed that discussions on the budget should begin around June 2003.

Supply Chain Management

A joint task team of the Trade and Industry and Public Finance Monetary Policy chambers was held on 4 March 2003. Government tabled the Draft Supply Chain Management Framework, which it confirmed had been redrafted incorporating concerns raised by constituencies on Capital Goods, the Proudly South African Campaign and Black Economic Empowerment.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY CHAMBER

This chamber has continued to be the busiest Nedlac chamber.

Funding from the Department of Trade and Industry has enabled it to continue functioning in order to keep up with the number of issues on its agenda.

These include:

Industrial Strategy issues:

• Government's Integrated Manufacturing Strategy, including the Value Matrix Methodology for Sectoral Evaluation
• Implementation of the National Research and Development Strategy
• Advanced Manufacturing Strategy
• Phasing out of Asbestos - policy discussions on a Fridge Study completed in February
• Clean Development Mechanism - Government is to report on the roles and responsibilities of the newly established Unit within the DTI
• Impact of Climate Change Convention on S.A. Economy - policy discussions on a Fridge Study
• Biodiversity Bill. Enterprise Development issues:
  • Draft Supply Chain Management Framework (joint task team with PFMPC)
  • Black Economic Empowerment
  • Development of Cooperatives (joint task team with the Development Chamber)
  • Small Micro and Medium Enterprises. Sector Strategies
  • Supply side measures
  • Sector Summits
  • Information Communication and Technology
  • Metals and Engineering
  • Chemicals
  • Construction industry.

Trade Policy

World Trade Organisation - The position of Government would be discussed at Nedlac and positions adopted would be tied up to all the Agreements negotiated with the following countries;

- US-SACU
- SA-SADC
- SACU-MERCUSOR
- SA-EU
- India
- China and Nigeria

• National Commercial Ports Policy
• Container Security Initiative
• Nepad - the trade related aspects of the agreement
• WSSD - Preparations for the 11th Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) meeting, which South Africa will chair. Monitoring and Evaluation
• Fund for Research into Industrial Development, Growth and Equity (FRIDGE) (see story on page 4)
• Legislation to be tabled at the chamber in 2003: Government undertook to table the following legislation at the Chamber:
  • Consumer Protection Policy
  • Consumer Credit Policy
  • Amendments to Companies Act.
  • Proudly South African - the chamber continues to monitor the implementation of the campaign, and discuss ways of how it can lend its support.