Date: 30/04/2009

Source: African National Congress

Title: ANC: Phosa: Speech by the ANC treasurer-general to the Business Council of Africa, London

South Africa held its' peaceful fourth democratic election on 22 April this year. As elections go, it was uneventful, apart from the fact that 77% of the electorate decided to exercise their democratic right to vote.

The result was widely predicted. The ANC was re-elected to govern the country by garnering just below 66% of the popular vote and some quarters there was a sigh of relief that our party did not achieve that magic mark of two thirds of the vote.

To illustrate that the democratic process is sound and strong, the strongest opposition party (16% of the vote) won the mandate to govern in one of the provinces.

As one of the consequences of the election, South Africa will soon see the swearing in of the fourth President of the Republic of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, after which he will announce his Cabinet, inclusive of the so-called economic ministries.

I have very little doubt that some of your questions will centre around that matter, and possible incumbents.

At the very same time that the elections took place the Indian Premier cricket league kicked off in major centres across South Africa. We were fortunate to be chosen as the host of the tournament when the decision was taken not to hold it in India this year.

The IPL has played to almost capacity stadiums in all the major centres of our country. It has focussed massive commercial interest on our major centres and hotels and guest lodges everywhere are booked to capacity.

Later this year we host the ICC Mini World Cup and the CAF Cup, and next year we are the hosts to the Soccer World Cup.

South Africa has become a major player in the globalization of sport since we successfully hosted both the Rugby and Cricket World Cups in our country.

Our dedication to quality and detail has afforded us the privilege of benefiting from growth of commercial sport as a leading industry globally.

I use the fact of hosting the IPL at the same time as our democratic elections to illustrate that we have put in place a number of policies, systems and structures which will stand us in good stead now, and in the future.

Some of them are:

A conservative fiscal and monetary policy which worked to our benefit when the global financial markets went into trauma. We have no intention whatsoever to discontinue the policies that saw our financial institutions weather the international storms.

Strong democratic institutions that mitigate against misuse by individual leaders.

Excellent partnerships between government and the private sector in South Africa and the region.

* An understanding of the changes in the way that global business is conducted, our exposure to it, as well as the benefits of globalization to our country.
* An understanding that global partnerships based on best practice and reciprocal value is to our benefit.
* The promotion of nation-building and reconciliation not only in our country, but also in the region, and on the continent.
* The promotion of ever-increasing investor friendly policies to attract foreign direct investment to our country.
* The understanding of the fact that we need to demystify black economic empowerment and make it more attractive to multi nationals.

I fully understand that a change in leadership makes the international investment community more nervous.

When that is accompanied by over the top media coverage that borders on the sensational, it becomes a challenge to stay calm and take rational business decisions.

Our incoming government has an ambitious delivery plan aimed at addressing challenges in housing, energy, health, education and public infrastructure, to name a few.

In saying that our policy will be to create additional revenue to partly fund the programs aimed at dramatically boosting the infrastructure in the sectors mentioned.

But, in that, there are also opportunities for global businesses to bring the best in technology, knowledge and business acumen to our shores. We are, as I have stated before, more than open to discuss partnerships with you to our mutual benefit.

Our main aim will be to establish domestic policies and structures to address our need to address economic and social inequalities that we inherited fifteen years ago.

Our approach will not be one of placing the blame elsewhere, but to look for the best in our global partnerships to assist us in profiting from the many opportunities in our country.

In doing that, we aim to look for partnerships in the Southern African region and continent to not only create broader sectoral and industry opportunities, but also to strengthen the regional and continental governance structures that facilitate investment.

In short: We will continue on an economic policy path that has rewarded us in the past decade or so. We hope that strong partnerships will assist us in making our business environment even more attractive than it currently is.

I thank you.