We need to increase the capacity; we need to improve performance so that we are more effective at lending that kind of support.

There are black companies that are very active in the economy, that are growing and not on the basis of mergers and acquisitions, but because of putting new money into their particular companies and, therefore, their particular sectors. Indeed, if they didn't do that, they would collapse as companies.

I was very fortunate to be able to go to school and university, because many people our age couldn't complete school. This gift of education must be used in whatever ways we can to uplift the people.

If you look at government policy generally, what government tries to do in all instances is to make sure that we take care of all elements that might relate to a particular issue.

One of the issues that I have raised in that context is our transport system, road, rail and ports. We have raised this before, that the South African economy has grown at a rate that has overtaken the capacity of the transport system. And therefore, we have said that it is necessary to expand our capacity in the ports.

Clearly, there needs to be an increase in the capacity of the railway system. That's why there are these projections of increasing the capacity to carry freight on the railways by 30% over the next five years or so, because the volume of goods moved up and down, imports, exports, and within the country, has grown much larger than the capacity. And this is part of the higher costs to business, because charges, for instance, at the ports become too high and they put up the prices of these goods, whether they are imports or exports. You want to reduce that.

We would take the same position as the majority of the world about this, including this issue where Prime Minister [Ariel] Sharon made a commitment to pull Israeli troops out of Gaza.