Pretoria - South Africa has to reposition itself in a way that it becomes more competitive, says Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.
"We must stop kicking out of the goal-post. We must kick goals now and if we do so by scoring economic goals a lot more effectively and by working as a team, we can be more effective for our country and for broader constituencies," said Gordhan on Wednesday.
Gordhan was addressing media ahead of the G20 Summit to be held in Toronto, Canada, from June 26 to 27. The G20 is a coalition of the world's foremost developed and developing nations, and South Africa is the only African member-country. President Jacob Zuma will lead the country's delegation to the two- day meeting.
"When we talk of growth, what we require is a much more active conversation about not how we do better in our traditional markets but how we do differently in our non-traditional markets. We have more markets we can reach out to and grow our economy," said the minister.
Minister Gordhan said if South Africa managed to beat France [ in last night's World Cup match which saw South Africa falling out of the tournament] surely it could do better in growing its economy.
"What we require is the same passion we see around the country during this World Cup period .There's a new passion; there's a new energy there's reaching out to the world that has come to us, we are finding innovative ways of celebrating.
"Let's convert that energy if we want to promote growth in our country and if we want to do things differently. Doing things differently takes boldness, innovation, it takes guts but it requires a particular kind of leadership from all sections of society. If we stick to the traditional way of doing things we won't create enough jobs, we won't b able to compete in the world adequately," he explained.
He said this weekend's meeting was crucial in that the G20 had set an incredible track record in terms of co-ordinated and collective action in response to the financial crisis.
He said the challenges now facing the G20 was how they can get the world growing at a faster rate so that there is development and job creation as well.
The meeting would have to also resolve the sovereign, fiscal crisis and uncertainties that are faced by certain parts of the world. It will also have to deal with financial market volatility following the fiscal crisis.
He said that in the last few weeks there has been word from some countries in both the developed and developing world that have stated that growth is a crucial issue for them while others have said that fiscal consolidation is a crucial issue for them.
"One of the challenges we'll have to resolve at the G20 is how do we balance these two factors. How do we balance the necessity for fiscal consolidation in a growth friendly way?" asked the minister. He added that it is becoming clear that the world's economic recovery will be uneven for some time.
"In discussing a second area which will be the framework for strong sustainable and balanced growth leaders will have to take on board growth dynamics and upside and downward factors," said the minister.
The World Bank's chief economist has suggested that a new growth model be looked at which is multipolar in nature and takes place across the globe as opposed to just some regions.
"In this context, development and poverty eradication and job creation is at the centre of this model. It has important implications for SA business," commented Gordhan.
He added that South Africa agrees with the direction that there needs to be a stabilization of the financial system (for banks, hedge funds among others) across the world.
"We believe there needs to be coordination that doesn't have to be uniformity. South Africa together with Canada, Australia have a common belief that our banking systems are fairly secure."
The issue of the bank levy at this point in time is not something that needs to be done uniformly believes South Africa. He also pointed out the world should not only focus on having growth "for its own sake."
"The recent employment stats we've seen is depressing to say the least and clearly South Africans within the labour movement, within the business community and government need to work harder and need to work together in order to ensure that the level of job creation in South Africa improves phenomenally if we're going to improve the prospects of young people getting employed and of the unemployed returning to employment in some form."
Quarterly Employment Statistics released by Statistics South Africa yesterday revealed that a further 79000 jobs were lost in the first quarter of 2010.
At the meeting in Canada there will also be talks on the promotion of small business and as a result the South African delegation will take along two business representatives.
The next G20 meeting to be held in Korea will deal with issues of development.
