Khula Business Tour is an initiative and a drive to promote small business development and cultivate youth entrepreneurial culture, whilst inspiring and motivating established and aspiring emerging small businesses across the province and the country at large.

Khula Business Tour's set objective emanates from the youth enterprise development strategy and various youth programmes and the promotion of small business development, nationwide. The Khula Business Tour is a national project, which is being piloted in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). The business tour will assume the form of one-of-a-kind roadshows across KZN in all eleven district municipalities in the province. This is a pilot with future prospects to be rolled over across all nine provinces in the country. The aim is for alignment of the provincial economic landscape with that of regional economic needs, scaling and identifying sustainable economic growth trajectories and commercial community projects that are inclusive of especially young people and women.

The Khula Business Tour will be structured in four segments throughout the KZN's 11 district municipalities, in 11 instalments taking place every month from June 2015 over two days per district region per instalment to ensure inclusiveness: There will be;
• A district business breakfast in the morning (for small established business and government to converge and discuss challenges and opportunities);
• A Youth Business Park consisting of :
» Expo Park for various funding agencies and business aligned institutions to showcase their services and funding opportunities;
» Media Centre - a career guidance and information engine;
» Edutainment Centre for knowledge and interaction hub.

The fact that Khula Business Tour is mobile means that more people will have access to business related information, especially small business owners and youth owned enterprises in rural communities will be able to gather and attend without transport challenges. The Khula Business Tour will be showcasing tools that will propel small business and youth entrepreneurs towards growth and sustainable development. There are various provincial programmes that Khula Business Tour has aligned and linked as part of the tours empowerment objective to create regional economic activity.
The provincial programmes are: The KZN economic industrial hubs, being championed by the provincial Department of Economic Development Tourism and Environmental Affairs (DEDTEA), led by honourable MEC Michael Mabuyakhulu.
The industrial hubs are set to be present in every district and are tailored to respond to each and every district's industrial needs and area of potential growth. Also included are the KZN provincial youth directorate programmes being undertaken through the KZN Office of the Premier through the recently established Youth Directorate, which seeks to address the youth priority programmes ranging from agriculture, maritime; industrial engineering, manufacturing, information technology, construction, art and culture to name a few.

The Khula Business Tour is a bold initiative powered by the Department of Small Business Development (DSBD), the DSBD as a major force tasked with accelerating and developing small businesses, which a large component is youth owned enterprises. It is understood that the national economic growth and the well-being of the country and its people lies with the development and support of small businesses in all sectors to create economic longevity and sustainability. There are various partners that Khula Business Tour has partnered with in KZN to advance the development of small business and youth entrepreneurs, namely:
• Trade and Investment KwaZulu-Natal (TIKZN), as the trusted business arm of the province in assisting with seamless integration and business facilitation of small business, investors and established businesses
• South African Local Government Association (SALGA), as the body responsible for municipalities and carrying out good governance of local government and shaping local economic development
• DEDTEA tasked with the provincial sustainable economic growth
• National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), its key mandate being the promotion youth empowerment, development and youth enterprise developmental support;
• The KZN Office of the Premierand Youth Directorate
• Various media partners to carry the message of small business development to millions of people; Gagasi-FM and the Independent Newspaper amongst others;
• Various other contributors and participants as the advancing and the shaping of the socio-economic of the country's outlook is a collective effort.

The Khula Business Tour will commence in the iLembe District Municipality, represented by
Mayor Mdabe in June 2015 and will move across the province in eleven instalments. The Khula Business Tour is not a once of affair, during this pilot various projects will be announced and delivered and the capturing of the provincial and regional economic landscape clusters will happen simultaneously for monitoring and reporting purposes.
Small Business is the back-bone of our emerging economy and the focus on development of small business and youth entrepreneurs is what will propel this nation forward and set the new era of economic growth and economic freedom.
The Khula Business Tour is one of the vehicles being utilised to grow and develop our communities, our country, per person per day per district!

"What if Growth was a Possibility".


stephanie@superfecta.info
www.superfecta.co.za