WESGRO appointed Mthente to develop two fact sheets.  One on Angola and the other on Brazil.  The Angolan fact sheet focused on the market for consumer goods and cosmetics and toiletries in Angola. The Brazil fact sheet focused on the food and beverages sector in Brazil.

The fact sheets were designed to provide relevant and comprehensive information to exporters in the Western Cape on the consumer goods markets in each of these countries, as well as to provide intelligence that would assist potential exporters to make informed decisions on whether to enter these sector in the two countries.

In its aims to fulfil its leadership role for the regional economy in terms of facilitating growth and reducing unemployment, the Western Cape Government Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDAT) commissioned a study to Mthente that focused on gaining a better understanding of the structure of the economy and the contribution of the various sectors to its growth and stablity.

Mthente, therefore, was commissioned to map the provincial economy against the SIC system, investigate the availability of data from formal and informal sources and estimate ranges for employment, the number of firms and wage rates for the various economic sectors.

Mthente was commissioned by the Gauteng Department of Economic Development to support the department in crafting an Integrated Co-operatives Development Strategy, which was aligned with the national and provincial policy framework.

The focus of the strategy was on the needs of co-operatives in the province; current policy and legislation; sector issues; developing sector co-operatives and provincial strategies; promoting entrepreneurship through co-operatives; enhancing competitiveness and capacity; and, aligning the developed strategy to research recommendations for co-operatives.

Mthente conducted a study for the IDC, This study is focused on administered pricing in the energy, telecommunications, transport and water sectors in South Africa, wherein prices are set via a regulated framework in settings where the market alone would not have ensured an efficient outcome. This study was done on a national level and pertained to Trade, investment and Economic Development.

Mthente was appointed by the University of Mauritius to assess the potential of positioning the Western Cape Province as a knowledge hub in a globalising world economy.   The study explored whether the Western Cape possessed the critical success factors to become an internationally competitive knowledge hub that could contribute towards South Africa’s national economic goals of economic growth, employment creation and poverty reduction.  This is due to international evidence suggesting that the answer to this policy questions lies with understanding the dimensions of creating a knowledge hub.  A knowledge hub has been defined by the University of Mauritius as an “ensemble of knowledge-intensive institutions and organisations (public, private and overseas) that generate, store, transfer, apply and transmit knowledge through education and training with the overall objective of fostering economic and social development.”