A task team is to be created to explore opportunities to revitalise the electronics sector on the back of SA's move to digital television.
The task team will be set up by the Department of Communications (DOC), the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) and the Steel and Engineering Industry Federation of SA (Seifsa).
The commitment stems from a recent meeting between the industry bodies and communications minister Roy Padayachie.
SA and most countries in the Southern African Development Community are moving to digital television using the European DVB-T2 standard. The region aims to turn off analogue broadcast by the end of 2013, a year-and-a-half before the global deadline.
More opportunities
The meeting between the minister and industry associations looked into the role digital television can play in revitalising the local electronics and related components industry. Moving to digital television is set to create a decoder manufacturing sector and reignite SA's flagging electronics industry.
Padayachie has held a series of meetings with big and small businesses, as well as labour and civil society. A recent colloquium led to an undertaking by the sector to create a million new jobs by 2020.
The department, Numsa and Seifsa say in a joint statement that the meeting between Padayachie and the associations stems from president Jacob Zuma's call to create jobs. Government aims to provide five million new job opportunities in the next few years.
Padayachie previously indicated that about 2.4 million direct and indirect jobs can be created through SA's set-top box manufacturing plan.
Other opportunities for job creation in the ICT sector include manufacturing of digital antennas, transmission equipment, cables and smart meters as applications for water, energy and other utilities management, as well as software development and content applications, according to the joint statement.
“These opportunities underscore the central importance of the electronics industry in the emerging digital future.”
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