It would be risky to take the simplification or elimination of rules in terms of an international framework for investment to the extreme, President Jacob Zuma warned at the Group of Twenty (G20) business summit in Seoul.

He said that while the G20 was hoping to agree on an international framework for investment, this would be difficult to achieve, given the diversity of countries seeking foreign investment and the national interest of each G20 country.

"At this stage, the world is too diverse for a common implementable code. Nations face a range of development challenges," he said.

Nevertheless, Zuma urged countries to "work seriously" towards a common approach to foreign direct investment in their various economic regions.

He highlighted Africa's successes in getting through the global economic crisis, saying that the majority of countries on the continent were continuing to grow relatively strongly.

"The global economic crisis demonstrated two things about Africa's readiness for growth. The first is that macroeconomic policies in most African countries have improved so much that they were able to ride through the crisis. The second important factor is that Africa continued to grow because of the expansion of domestic demand."

Given its one-billion citizens and the unexploited minerals wealth on the continent, Africa's growth potential was "truly massive", he noted.

Much still had to be done to reach this potential, but African countries were working towards regional and economic integration, he added.

Further, countries were also working towards improving Africa's continental infrastructure.

"South Africa has been assigned by the African Union (AU) to champion the building of Africa's north-south rail and road links. Other Heads of State and government are championing other continent wide African infrastructure programmes, within an agreed AU approach."