Johannesburg — BLACK business was set to benefit from a three-year multimillion-rand scheme, the Department of Trade and Industry said yesterday.

The scheme is an effort to create more viable commercial enterprises in townships and rural areas, which aim to revive rural economies that have not been able to create sustainable livelihoods for local communities.

More benefits will now be made available to small black business enterprises within the manufacturing, tourism, retail and construction industries.

It will also provide finance to small businesses not able to get capital from commercial banks.

The three-year pilot project, worth R73m, will begin on September 1 and replaces the old black business supplier development programme.

Despite the fact that 4000 applications were approved under the old programme, it was not sustainable and did not yield the intended results. As of yesterday. Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies suspended the programme. A pplicants will have to wait until September to apply under the new programme.

The new scheme, which will consider 2500 new applicants, aims to steer qualifying enterprises to be more competitive by adopting innovative methods of doing business. The businesses should have an annual profit of between R500000 and R35m to be considered.

The World Bank's Fransico Campos said that the bank would provide the technical expertise.