The Industrial Developmental Corporation (IDC) approved the most funding ever for South African investments in its financial year ending March, it said on Thursday.

The IDC approved R8.4 billion in funding for South African investment. "This is the highest level ever for South African-based investments," the IDC said in a statement.

The funding was expected to create 19,650 full-time jobs and save an additional 11,650 jobs. Another 8100 jobs could be created through links to activities in the informal economy.

"We have retained our focus both on preserving and growing high impact manufacturing capacity and have succeeded in improving our impact on job creation," said IDC CEO Geoffrey Qhena. The IDC made a profit of R2.7 billion during the year under review.

97% of the projects it approved funding for were in priority sectors identified in government’s new growth path economic strategy. These include manufacturing, mining value chain and infrastructure and agriculture.

Minister of Economic Development Ebrahim Patel welcomed the results, which he said showed "solid performance and industrial recovery. The IDC has a strong, healthy balance-sheet, which will now be used more actively to drive the New Growth Path and job creation," he said in a statement.

"We are now working with the IDC to significantly expand the level of investment, reduce the cost to industrial borrowers and shift more investment to projects with a large labour-absorbing capacity," he said.