South Africa, a new United Nations report asserts, has more State-owned enterprises active internationally than any other country, including China – this, in the absence of any fresh wave of nationalisation.

The United Nations Conference of Trade and Development (Unctad) ‘World Investment Report 2011’ states that South Africa has a total of 54 State-owned transnational corporations (TNCs), compared with China’s 50. Malaysia comes in third with 45, and Denmark fourth with 36 such enterprises.

However, on inspection it transpires that the figure includes a host of JSE-listed entities, which most South Africans would not consider to be State-owned. This is because Unctad’s definition includes entities in which the Public Investment Corporation has taken a significant equity interest.

In fact, University of Johannesburg economist and The EDGE Institute director Prof Stephen Gelb explains that seeming anomaly has arisen owing to Unctad’s definition of a State-owned TNC, which includes everything from full ownership, through to entities in which the State has only 10% of the voting shares.

Therefore, companies such as MTN, Growthpoint, Aveng, Mondi, Remgro, Bidvest and a host of others have been classified by the agency as State-owned TNCs.

By contrast, the 50 Chinese State-owned TNCs seem to be the genuine article, as they are either wholly owned, or have the State as a majority shareholder.

Unctad’s main reason for counting the State-owned TNCs, of which there are said to be 650 globally, is to highlight their growing role in foreign direct investment (FDI) flows.

The report says that State-owned TNC, particularly from developing countries, have become active global investors.

“In 2010, their FDI . . . totalled $146-billion, or roughly 11% of global FDI flows,” Unctad states.

Global FDI inflows rose by 5% to $1.24-trillion last year.