Building opportunities in BRICS
SOUTH Africa has embarked on a path of economic recovery and reconstruction to provide a better future for its youth. In times of economic chaos and political turbulence exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, the government must invest heavily in infrastructure and employability projects.
Despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s mega investment drive for several years, it has not attracted the kind of “developmental investment” vital for a developing economy such as South Africa.
South Africa’s partnership with the developing south plays a central role in spurring growth and poverty alleviation by promoting greater productivity, boosting trade, reducing the cost of doing business, and creating new jobs. This bold task cannot be achieved without attracting developmental investment.
Getting money from foreign partners is not an easy task, given that South Africa’s sovereign credit rating is at a sub-investment level. This situation raises the costs of borrowing and complicates the process of securing further loans. Yet, South Africa’s participation in BRICS offers unique opportunities, unlike our current dependencies on the G7 northern nations.
Last week, South Africa participated in the BRICS Summit on September 9, under the theme “BRICS @15: INTRABRICS Co-operation for Continuity, Consolidation and Consensus”, which was chaired by India. BRICS members reiterated their commitment to enhancing co-operation in the areas of politics and security, economy, and people-to-people exchanges.
The priority for all BRICS countries was to create a more inclusive, equitable and representative multipolar international system with the UN at its centre, based on international law and respect for territorial integrity.
Agreements were signed on the BRICS Co-operation on Remote Sensing Satellite Constellation, Assistance in Customs Matters, and Co-operation in the field of the Regulation of Medical Products for Human Use.
In a quest to lure foreign direct investment and improve the country’s economic profile, South Africa sent a strong delegation of business leaders to the BRICS Business Forum, hosted by India from August 16-18 this year. Apart from exploring opportunities for joint ventures in ICT, e-commerce and energy, a new women’s empowerment initiative was announced by the South African chapter of the BRICS Women’s Business Alliance.
In November, several South African organisations will be launching an initiative called #Freetheeconomy4women, which calls for the establishment of panels of women service providers and suppliers across all spheres of government where goods and services are procured.
The idea is to promote the interaction between women-entrepreneurs in BRICS countries. It is ambitious and can be adopted as an African solution to attain economic inclusion, sustainability, and growth, along with gender equality.
This month, when the Forum on China-africa Co-operation (Focac) convenes, it will have been 20 years since it was first convened. This Focac summit should be an occasion for reflection on what it takes for Africa’s own hopes and aspirations to be fulfilled.
China intends to boost its partnership and investment flows with African nations in such areas as the digital economy, smart cities and 5G networks.
Beijing will share the achievements of digital technology with Africa to promote interconnectivity of digital infrastructure.
The initiatives will not just remain a vision on paper, but experts will work hard to formulate and implement the Chinaafrica digital innovation partnership plan to achieve results as soon as possible. During the last Ministerial
Conference of the Focac, Chinese President Xi Jinping said: “China will expand co-operation in investment and financing to support sustainable development in Africa. China provided $60 billion (about R8.56 trillion) of credit to African countries to assist them in developing infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing, and small and medium-sized enterprises.”
Another viable option is taking advantage of the Russia-africa Partnership Forum next year.
Two years ago, Russia was able to gather all the 54 African states at Sochi for the first-ever high-level meeting to promote bilateral and multilateral ties.
Russia’s energy-related, stateowned, and private companies have started playing a major role in Africa. For instance, oil, gas, and nuclear energy-related companies are active in Algeria, Angola, Uganda, and Egypt.
Russia is also getting concessions to produce offshore gas in Mozambique. The Association of Economic Co-operation with African States (Aecas), established under the aegis of the forum, is eager to engage African companies to create grounds for mutual businesses to thrive. A total of $12.5bn worth of deals were struck at the first-ever Russia-africa Summit in 2019, and the total amount of African countries’ debt to the Russian Federation that Moscow has written off exceeds $20bn.
At one of the BRICS 2021 summit events, Paseka Pharumele, an academic and a founding member of the Convention for Pan-africanism and Progress (CPP), highlighted the growing importance of Africa in international affairs through the presence of South Africa in the BRICS.
He also elaborated on the chain of development: “For a country to be successful, there needs to be economic development, and in order for economic development to be achieved, you need to be funded, and one cannot be funded if the country that is funding you is doing so focusing on its personal gain.
Thus, the BRICS bank was created to assist developing countries to free themselves from over-dependence on imperialist banks and divert their financial requests to banks which do not centre on Western imperialist ideologies.”
If the South African government is serious about the $100bn investment drive, it should be open-minded and not rely exclusively on Western states. South Africa must be open to co-operation with BRICS partners.
Over-reliance on the US and UK has already resulted in our country falling behind in the vaccination campaign. As the old saying goes, “never put all your eggs in one basket”.”cash is king, so is diversification.