The Department of Trade and Industry will in the next few months launch a national one-stop-shop that will be responsible for issuing permits, licences and registering new businesses, President Jacob Zuma said in a written reply to a parliamentary question.

Cope MP Deirdre Carter asked Zuma whether government has started efforts to remove red tape and make South Africa more business-friendly.

In his reply, Zuma elaborated on a number of initiatives government has started to promote investment in the country.

Besides the imminent one-stop-shop, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and Jabu Mabuza, president of Business Unity South Africa, have established a task team and working groups in which government and business participate to strengthen the trust between these two parties and to identify blockages to production and employment.

Zuma said the task team has looked at how to improve the systems and capacity for assessing the impact of proposed and existing regulations on growth, investment and employment.

Other measures include reducing delays and unnecessary red tape around authorisation needed for investments, and working towards improving regulation and reducing the burden of importing core and critical skills needed for the economy.

Zuma said he is pleased with recent investments into South Africa, such as:

- a new Toyota manufacturing plant in Durban for Hilux and Fortuner vehicles that translated into an investment of more than R6bn;

- a new BMW body shop for the manufacturing of next generation BMW X3-series vehicles at the company’s Rosslyn plant in Gauteng;

- a new Dursots and All Joy Tomato processing plant to the value of R100-million near Tzaneen, which will allow 15 black emerging partners to be part of the value chain;

- a factory in Ekurhuleni to the value of R1-billion that will be utilised to manufacture trains for the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa; and

- a new cable production line in Pietermaritzburg that will produce cables for the locomotive build programme.

South Africa remains an attractive investment destination and government is committed to improving our investment climate, said Zuma.