President Jacob Zuma Addressing leaders of SA business and government

with the rand having become an increasingly significant reserve currency over the past two years.

Liberty CE Thabo Dloti says many of the foreign business people he met at Davos were simply in inquiry mode, wanting to know where growth would come from at a time when SA’s growth rate had fallen to 1,5% and other Brics countries were imploding. Others were more specific, wanting to know whether SA had the political will to get the economy going.

But the question many asked was: “You’ve got all these great companies — where are they going to grow?” And the big answer in Liberty’s case, says Dloti, is that our growth is on the rest of the continent. And the same goes for many other SA companies.

One of the sideline closed sessions was an Africa Infrastructure breakfast which Zuma co-hosted with former UK prime minister Gordon Brown.

Geoffrey White, the CEO for Africa of international logistics company Agility, says he was hugely impressed with the dialogue between Zuma and Brown: “He clearly is creating the momentum for solutions to the infrastructure problem.”

Corporate SA is focused on moving into new markets across the continent and from Agility’s perspective there are big opportunities in providing the logistics to get goods to market. Agility is expanding into Jacob Zuma and Gordon Brown The two hosted a breakfast on African infrastructure