Wesgro has facilitated several meetings between key stakeholders and the DHA to find workable solutions to the problems that resulted from the recent changes to South African visa regulations.
Following the announcement, Wesgro CEO Tim Harris, praised the IMC's willingness to listen to input from various industry stakeholders and looked forward to facilitating further discussions between industry and government.
"Wesgro has worked closely with the DHA since the new regulations were announced and facilitated a workshop between key stakeholders in the private and public sector including representatives from the DHA to discuss the new visa regulations and find common ground," said Harris.
During the workshop members of the tourism and film industry, as well as representatives from English language schools, raised concerns around the new visa regulations and had an opportunity to interact with the DHA directly to try and find workable solutions that respected security concerns but were also not too restrictive.
"It would seem that many of the grievances that were raised during that workshop have been taken into consideration in the IMC's recommendations," said Harris.
"In the tourism sector, Chinese and Indian visitors in particular, were hard hit by the new visa regulations and we saw a marked decline in their numbers after the regulations were introduced.
"Tourism is one of the largest employers in the Western Cape and has been identified by Wesgro and the Western Cape government as a strategic sector with significant growth potential," he said.
"We sincerely hope that the IMC's recommendations are implemented soonest so that we can continue to build on the strength of the industry. We will also be continuing to engage with the relevant departments to secure a similarly positive outcome for the Cape's language schools, who continue to face a very difficult situation with visas," Harris concluded.
