The Fibre Processing and Manufacturing (FP&M) SETA was established by the Minister of Higher Education and Training on 1 April 2011 after government took a decision to cluster sectors in order to strengthen value-chain linkages between related industries. The FP&M SETA mandate is: to provide skills development services to the clothing, footwear, forestry, furniture, general goods, leather, packaging, print media, printing, publishing, pulp and paper, textiles and wood products sub-sectors, to implement the objectives of the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS III) and to ensure that people obtain the critical or scarce skills that are needed to build the capacity of the FP&M sector to become economically sustainable and globally competitive. The FP&M sector offers a range of exciting careers for those with the necessary skills and qualifications.