South Africa offers investment and joint venture opportunities

Chennai:  Nhlanhla Nene, Deputy Minister of Finance, Government of South Africa,  invited Indian investment in South Africa,` one of the most significant emerging markets’, and offered to facilitate investment beyond its border, in the entire African continent, through joint ventures.

He said South Africa acted as an investment and financial gateway to the larger African market of over one billion people. Besides being the gateway, South Africa also offered ``relevant partners to move together to Africa’’.

Addressing and interactive session of Indian businessmen and a South African business delegation of African National Congress (ANC) Progressive Business Forum (PBF), here on Wednesday, he said, investment opportunities were open in sectors like, energy, particularly renewable energy, automotive, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

The interactive session was organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) - Southern Region along with African National Congress (ANC) Progressive Business Forum (PBF).

Since 2000, South Africa has been having significant investment in sectors like  telecommunication, wholesale and retail, automotive, and energy, in addition to the resources sector.

``We welcome investments into South Africa and facilitate investments in the rest of Africa.

Together will achieve inclusive and sustainable growth that will bring prosperity to the people of both the countries’’, Nene said.

Nene said the South Africa continued to grow at a moderate pace with a GDP growth target of 3.1 per cent. Public sector investment has been a major trigger for growth. ``The economy is also supported by strong legal and financial institutions’’, he said.

``There are plenty of investment opportunity in South Africa. We also find similar opportunities in India’’, he said.  The proposed huge investment in infrastructure sector provided investment opportunity for the private sector in various subsectors.``We are also looking for education and productivity improvement and their outcomes’’, Nene said.

The objective of the business forum is to establish new possibilities for South Africa and India to work together and highlight the favourable business environment in South Africa and to facilitate face to face B2B meetings with potential business partners, investors, and more.

The major focus areas of interest for the South African delegation are:  Retail, Power, Vegetation Management, Pest Control, Electronics, Trading and Distribution, Pharmacy, Consulting, Property Development, Construction, Infrastructure, Civil and Structural Engineering.

Renier Schoeman, PBF Co-Convenor, and leader of the delegation, said South Africa, a member of BRICS, has been a major investment destination and has a very significant role to play in world trade. He said the fundamentals were in place for investment in South Africa and the country’s trade was beyond BRICS with many other countries like Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

“We want to expand South African Business links with India and we will continue our relationship with CII and State bank of India and others to seize the opportunities all around’’, he said.

Varsha Purandare, Chief General Manager, State Bank of India (SBI), said from $2.5 billion in 2003, India’s trade with South Africa has grown to about $ 15 billion in 2012-13. She  said India imported one third of its gold from South Africa.

“SBI has five branches in South Africa and Johannesburg is the major contributor to our forex business. We are looking forward to the two business communities increasing their trade and in the process SBI helping them in that’’, she said.