The VW B-BBEE Initiatives Trust (‘VW Trust’) launched its operations in 2016 with an Enterprise & Supplier Development investment from Volkswagen Group South Africa. Initially, the Trust focused its activities on addressing the funding shortfall to black-owned SMEs in the automotive value chain. In addition to offering growth capital, the Trust has provided post-investment support and access to markets support through supplier development initiatives in the automotive sector. Having successfully deployed funding to black owned automotive suppliers, in 2018, the Trust embarked on an ambitious strategy to support emerging micro-enterprises in the local communities surrounding Uitenhage. The first step of this initiative was to commission ground-breaking research into the Uitenhage Township economy. The specific objective of the research being to understand micro-entrepreneurial dynamics and outline a strategy to overcome obstacles. Extensive field research and participatory engagements with township entrepreneurs resulted in the development of a Uitenhage Township Economy Development Strategy which included the identification of 12 socio-economic development projects. In the next phase of its growth, the VW Trust will continue to support the development of black owned suppliers in the automotive value chain and drive high impact socio-economic projects in the communities surrounding Uitenhage.
