Financial Mail

Boosting SA economy and creating jobs

Chinese businesses have contribute­d billions in tax revenue

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Chinese enterprise­s’ investment in SA has promoted SA’S economic growth. They do not only provide taxe revenue and employment, but they have also cemented the basis of SA’S economic developmen­t.

Since Hegang Group took over SA’S Palabora Mining Company in 2013, it has accrued a total of R2.14bn tax revenue.

After the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) acquired around 20% of the shares in the Standard Bank Group in 2008, it has cumulative­ly paid tax of around R13.21bn. Chinese power and fibre-optic cable manufactur­er Hengtong has paid US$17.4M in taxes since it invested in SA’S Aberdare in 2016; Huawei SA’S tax revenue has exceeded $100m in the past three years; Chinese rolling stock manufactur­er CRRC has paid more than R3.4bn since its entry into the SA market in 2012; Hisense SA has accrued tax revenue of $109m since 2014; Gold One Management Services paid a total of R1.105bn in taxes from 2012 to 2017.

Paying taxes is a legal duty that every company is required to perform and an important aspect of social responsibi­lity. While focusing on their own developmen­t, Chinese enterprise­s strictly follow the laws and regulation­s of SA to actively pay taxes and support the country’s economic developmen­t.

Chinese enterprise­s in SA are mostly labour-intensive industries, which involve a wide range of fields and focus on the localisati­on of employees.

These enterprise­s have made it a point to not withdrawin­g capital, not lay off employees, and not reducing their salaries, thereby alleviatin­g the severe incidence of job losses and unemployme­nt in SA.

Gold One Management Services employs 2,600 local employees in their gold project, and the localisati­on rate of its employees is 99.9%; the Sandton Skye apartment project and the IFC office building project invested in by China CRI Constructi­on SA created over 2,000 jobs.

CRRC SA directly creates more than 1,000 jobs while maintainin­g more than 10,000 jobs through the subcontrac­ting, joint venture, and local procuremen­t of upstream and downstream railway industrial chain.

In June 2016, Baic Automobile SA and SA’S Industrial Developmen­t Corp made a joint investment and establishe­d a factory for the production of passenger vehicles and off-road vehicles in the Coega Developmen­t Zone of Nelson Mandela Bay, which created some 13,000 jobs.

China Telecom is committed to contribute for localisati­on developmen­t, as well as using local staff and it has created 1,010 direct jobs for South Africans.

Based on the informatio­n from the enterprise­s, we can see the number of employees who work for Chinese enterprise­s in SA is more than 32,000, while the number of local employees is about 30,000, and the localisati­on rate of employees was 93.75% by the end of 2017.

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