Leaders of the G20 including President Cyril Ramaphosa have wrapped up their summit in Osaka, Japan, with calls to strive for a free, fair and stable trade and investment environment.
The leaders went to the summit with concerns that the trade tensions between the United States (US) and China would over-shadow deliberations.
That, however, did not stop Ramaphosa from embarking on a mission to attract investors to help South Africa’s ailing economy.
“We are initiating a number of measures to set the economy on a new path of growth, of creating more and more employment, and also transforming an economy which is very much in need of transformation and change. In this regard, we’ve also been taking steps to restore credibility, as well as to improve governance in our various institutions, be they government institutions, state-owned enterprises and various other institutions that support democracy in our country,” says Ramaphosa.
Meanwhile, the South Africa delegation believes there’s still hope to attract investment that will help to turn the economy around.
Investors are still concerned about policy uncertainty, especially land expropriation without compensation.
Business Leadership South Africa CEO Bonang Mogale says, “They are spooked by this notion of land expropriation without compensation because we also don’t do ourselves a favour. The conversation we should be having is about land reform. People understand, investors do, the asset managers do, that the issue of land reform is much bigger because it is about restitution. It is about retribution, and indeed about land development. But the President has been explicit that it’s going to be done in an orderly and constitutionally sound manner.”
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