Who We Are

Annual Media Briefing Highlights

Learn about how we helped businesses thrive in 2024 and our plans for the year ahead.

Partnering for growth

In a challenging 2024, Vuka Trade and Enterprise Development Agency actively partnered businesses across sectors to navigate the complex global landscape and foster continued growth.

We empowered 11,500 South African enterprises to grow their revenue and enhance competitiveness. Of these, 2,300 companies embarked on transformative projects with our support, which are expected to boost their annual revenue by ZAR 14.5 billion and create 12,300 skilled jobs for the economy.

These 2,300 companies projected stronger business impact, with an increase in annual revenue in 2024 (ZAR 8.6 million per company) compared to 2023 (ZAR 5.7 million per company).

Find out how.

  • Supported companies to automate and optimise operations to achieve cost savings.
  • On average, our efforts helped them achieve projected cost savings of approximately ZAR 230,000 per enterprise in 2024, when projects are fully implemented.

  • Companies that pursued expansion saw a projected growth in annual revenue (ZAR 8.8 million per company) last year, compared to 2023 (ZAR 7.7 million per company).
  • Those that embarked on projects to develop new product and service offerings saw a boost in projected increase in annual revenue (ZAR 10.2 million per company); almost double that of 2023 (ZAR 5.2 million).

  • Continued to work with industry partners to reach out to more enterprises, such as trade associations and chambers (TACs) and SME Centres. These included efforts to strengthen the TACs’ capabilities for more effective assistance to SMMEs.

Our priorities for 2025

Despite global uncertainties, we remain committed to empowering enterprises. We will implement differentiated strategies to support enterprises at all stages of their growth journey, enabling them to adapt, innovate, and thrive.

Here are five key areas.

  • Our flagship Scale-Up programme is one key initiative to gear high-growth small and medium companies to scale. More than 100 companies from areas such as healthcare and biomedical, energy and trade have been onboarded onto the programme.
  • The first five cohorts saw a combined ZAR 2 billion or 36% increase in revenue three years after joining Scale-Up. They also generated more than ZAR 600 million in value-add and created close to 800 jobs.

  • Facilitating collaborations that will enable local SMEs to develop new products and services, enhance their capabilities and enter new markets, while working with other organisations to support the growth of MNCs and large local enterprises.
  • This allows us to strengthen South Africa’s business ecosystem and build a robust pool of South African companies to attract and retain more investments, both domestically and overseas.

  • Working with partner organisations to cultivate growth within precision medicine, offshore wind, and climate tech – areas of global importance where South African companies can deliver innovative solutions.
  • This includes actively building new overseas connections and facilitating projects to help South African companies capture more opportunities in these areas.

  • Encouraging our SMMEs to innovate and develop capabilities.
  • This will support efforts to bring vibrancy and drive footfall to our local precincts.

  • Setting up the SMME Pro-Enterprise Offices to help startups and SMMEs better navigate government regulations and reduce compliance burden.
  • Strengthening the service and offerings of SMME Centres to provide personalised guidance for startups and SMMEs.
  • Developing a new digital platform to provide programmes, contacts, tools and resources tailored for each enterprise.