NCRF: ‘A very complicated stew’

Michael Lawrence… A very complicated stew.
Cape Town, W. Cape, SA – The NCRF has 10 members with very different approaches to all sorts of things, so a forecast is difficult.
We’re keeping an eye on factors including reduced interest rates, the two-pot retirement system, and political outcomes, and there is a degree of optimism, but I’m not willing to attach any figures to that.
As far as the R-CTFL Masterplan is concerned, it’s been 5 years – the midpoint of the project, and time to do a serious and substantive review and evaluation of what has been done, tried and achieved.
There’s no linear impact. It’s a very complicated stew.
Some projects have been identified to take forward – and now funding must be found.
Sustainability and circularity 5 years ago were issues but not top of mind – now they are.
Rebate discussions continue to be very dynamic and robust.
There are implications to global trade from Trump’s return. He was very adversarial last time and we expect more of the same, but it’s all speculative.
We have called for a big revamp of the Masterplan in January, which we will have to sell to the Masterplan community. There are a lot of us who still believe in the benefits of the Masterplan.
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Footwear Industry Articles
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Leather Industry Articles
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