Johannesburg — THE deputy director-general of the industrial development division at the Department of Trade and Industry, Nimrod Zalk, says SA has cemented its position as one of the key players in business process outsourcing and offshoring (BPO&O).

Speaking at the BPO Week conference in Port Elizabeth, he said that BPO&O was one of the key priorities identified in the state's industrial policy.

"The g overnment has made a high-profile, long-term commitment to the offshoring industry, resulting in strong investor support and sustainable reductions in costs over the next several years," Zalk said.

The conference is a joint effort between the government and an industry organisation, Business Process Enabling SA, for the benefit of the sector.

The conference seeks to address SA's BPO value proposition, deepening and developing a pool of internationally competitive talent, creating an enabling environment to encourage investment and highlight challenges, achievements and key plans for the sector.

The BPO sector is one of the sectors earmarked for intervention by the department in its industrial policy to attract foreign direct investment and create jobs.

The government has set aside R1bn in investment incentives over the next five years to achieve this. The incentives are on a par with a global benchmark to provide grants equal to half of the salary of each job created and a skill-training grant.

According to the department, despite the challenges that included high telecommunications costs, the sector continued to contribute vastly to the economy of the country.

There had been a commitment to create 24871 jobs by 25 investors who had benefited from the department's BPO incentive scheme. The department said a total of R1,7bn worth of investments were created over a period of three years.

Pumela Salela, director of BPO at the department, said SA's BPO potential was premised on its strength and growth in the banking, financial and insurance industry verticals. "We have successfully managed to attract four of the world's top players in the BPO space within the last three years, namely TeleTech, Aegis, Teleperformance and Genpact," Salela said.

She said future projects included the establishment of a BPO park that would provide "plug and play" facilities, training and development, international investors, and small, medium and micro-enterprise "incubation". Other projects included talent development initiatives that would cover training needs across all levels.

SA has had some success with call centres, with the sub-sector growing 8% a year over the past four years and now employing 54000 call centre agents.