The SA Daily
06 November 2019
Presidential investment drive
Shireen Darmalingam
- President Ramaphosa’s second annual investment summit this week aims to attract $100bn of investment over the next five years. The summit theme is “Accelerating Growth by Building Partnerships”. The conference is a partner initiative to the economic stimulus package announced by the president in 2018, and aims to boost economic activity, restore investor confidence, stem job losses, and create jobs. At the president’s inaugural conference last year, local and international investors pledged R300bn.
- The president said yesterday that government has made “tremendous progress” on reforms, while noting a dedicated “commitment to the reform trajectory”. The president is hoping to attract $20bn in investment from this conference.
- Ahead of this investment summit, in September National Treasury had published its SA economic strategy, with Finance Minister Tito Mboweni highlighting key focus areas of government’s growth-boosting strategy as: 1) improving network industries to improve competitiveness; 2) lowering the barriers to entry; 3) prioritising labour-intensive growth; 4) implementing a focused and flexible industrial and trade policy; and 5) improving export competitive and regional trade.
- Interventions made immediately will likely have a smaller impact than those made in the medium term. Still, it would lay a firm foundation for the successful implementation of further reforms. Policy interventions are expected to add between 0.8 ppts in the short term (1-3 years), 1.8 ppts in the medium term (1-6 years), and 2.3 ppts on average in the longer term (1-10 years).
Read PDF