Republikein Newspaper

Mfuneko Toyana and Alexander Winning - South African President Cyril Ramaphosa secured around R360 billion of investment pledges from businesses on Wednesday, saying these would spur economic growth and reduce unemployment.

But analysts said some of the pledges at South Africa's annual conference to promote new investment opportunities were just regular operating costs and questioned whether those made by state-owned firms should be included in the total.

They were also sceptical the commitments were of sufficient scale to meaningfully change a bleak economic outlook.

Ramaphosa is trying to revive Africa's most industrialised economy after a decade of slow growth. He has promised sweeping reforms, but progress has been slow due to opposition from labour unions and parts of the African National Congress.

Ramaphosa said the money pledged on Wednesday was a "clear vote of confidence in South Africa and our economy".

"After a prolonged period of stagnation, uncertainty and upheaval, I would like to believe we are firmly on the road to recovery," he said.

At a conference last year, Ramaphosa set a goal of attracting US$100 billion of new investments over five years and quickly secured more than half that amount in pledges.

Big spenders

But many of those promises are yet to translate into projects that could drastically reduce the 29% unemployment rate or lift the growth rate above last year's 0.8%.

On Wednesday South African firms like telecoms company MTN and paper company Sappi made some of the largest pledges, of R50 billion and R14 billion respectively.

State-owned freight firm Transnet promised R23 billion, while foreign companies like Rio Tinto and Coca-Cola made pledges of R6.5 billion and R15 billion each. Some executives who made pledges said their firms had already spent a portion of the funds.

Kevin Lings, chief economist at asset manager Stanlib, said the government's focus on deregulation and skills development at the conference was positive but severe fiscal constraints limited its ability to drive an economic recovery, and the private sector was still in "wait-and-see mode."

"What you are seeing so far is not enough to change the macro picture. It's the scale that's the problem," Lings said. – Nampa/Reuters