Ramaphosa wears House of Monatic suit to promote 'buy local' campaign

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday night urged South Africans to buy local as part of efforts to stimulate local demand and grow South African manufacturing.

Ramaphosa was speaking at the State of the National Address in parliament.

“We call on all South Africans to deliberately and consistently buy locally-made goods. The suit, the shirt and the tie I am wearing today was locally made by South African textile workers working at the House of Monatic here in Saltriver Cape Town,” Ramaphosa said.

“Let us all buy locally-made goods to drive up demand in our economy. Within this next year, we seek to conclude agreements with retailers to stock more South African goods on their shelves and to actively promote the great products made by South African hands.

“At the same time, we will promote our products more actively to the rest of the African continent and the world.

Ramaphosa said these measures were underpinned by government’s strong commitment to a macro-economic and fiscal policy framework that would continue to boost confidence and investment.

“We are committed to prudent borrowing and stringent expenditure management to stabilise our public finances and lower the debt trajectory.”