The second annual South African Cultural Observatory’s (Saco) national conference and the launch of the South African Festival Economic Impact Calculator are initiatives growing the creative economy. Saco is an umbrella organisation that monitors and evaluates the cultural and creative industry to generate better statistics and data and produce a permanent repository for cultural knowledge systems. The Department of Arts and Culture research project was launched to analyse the effect of the Mzansi Golden Economy strategy of 2011 that recognises that the creative economy is fundamental in driving a new economy that is flexible, dynamic and youthful. In 2014, the creative economy contributed 2.9% to GDP, amounting to R90.5bn, R24bn of that in taxes, and employing more than 440,000 people. It has overtaken the agriculture and mining sectors in growth and is an industry of the future, particularly as jobs are being lost to automation. Saco’s three-year tender concludes in March 2018, bu...
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