Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition Parks Tau says engagements at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting are a platform for South Africa to show that it is addressing the challenges facing the economy and the country.
The Minister was speaking during a media briefing following the pre-WEF Annual Meeting breakfast session held on Thursday.
The annual meeting will be held from Monday next week and is expected to conclude on Friday.
“I think that there is great prospect for us to ensure that we present the South African story for what it is, not what we hope it is, but what it is.
“And it doesn't suggest that…there aren’t difficulties in the country. We say we’re confronting the difficulties. We’re working on resolving the issues growing the economy and addressing our challenges,” Tau said.
The Minister said the importance of attending the WEF meeting cannot be underestimated in the face of South Africa’s ambitions to prop itself up as an investment destination of choice.
“If you look at the individual diaries of the individuals that would be there, it is quite extensive the number of people and influential business and government leaders that would be engaging. [This is] both in terms of our collective engagements with people at Davos, the different platforms that we would be engaging on, but also, in terms of the one-on-one sessions that have been scheduled for individual ministers, CEOs, Chairpersons, leaders of parastatals and so on.
“If you were to quantify the value of the engagements, I think it's quite extensive because the people that you would be engaging with that would be looking at you as a potential investment destination…or increasing their investments in the country.
“Those would be one on one sessions that are quite invaluable,” he explained.
Team South Africa
The delegation representing South Africa at the annual meeting is expected to be led by President Cyril Ramaphosa who will be joined by several Ministers and civil society and business leaders.
Speaking at the pre-WEF briefing, leaders in the South African business sector expressed support for Team South Africa heading into the annual meeting.
Standard Bank Chairperson Nonkululeko Nyembezi said the breakfast session with government emphasised the importance of “the alignment between government and business”.
“We …stress the fact that it’s not just for government to put across messaging about the country. The business community has got a singular responsibility in this regard because we’re talking to our business counterparts, talking the language they understand, telling them how we see our country evolving in our continent over the future.
“The economy is visibly growing and accelerating in that part. Clearly the electricity issue is a foundational element of that, but there are others that we can point to that show that we are getting on top of the issues.
“[But] we’ve got to keep it real. We haven’t solved every single problem, we still have unemployment that is unacceptably high etc, and those things we can be quite balanced about. footing this time around But I think Team South Africa is striding on far firmer,” Nyembezi said.
Discovery CEO, Adrian Gore, said South Africa’s showing at the WEF meeting will be “different”.
“I think from a business perspective, I think there is an unequivocal feeling that this year is different. The country…hopefully at a point of inflection. There are tremendous challenges that remain.
“But…I think ironically the theme of WEF is collaboration and, if anything, our country is illustrating that both in the GNU [and] certainly in the business-government partnership that is a fundamentally powerful construct.
“It’s…become a very well governed structure of cadence and uniqueness and is delivering very, very well to the country. So, there are a number of attributes we feel very confident about going into WEF,” Gore said. – SAnews.gov.za
