Local elections are one factor in delay of SA investment conference

The timing of the upcoming local government elections, among other factors, has led to the decision to postpone this year’s SA Investment Conference to March. That is according to Trudi Makhaya, the special economic adviser to President Cyril Ramaphosa.

In a recent statement, cabinet announced that the annual event, which has been held to attract fixed investment into SA each year since 2018, would be held over to March.

At the time of planning, there was uncertainty about the date of the election, Makhaya told Business Day in response to questions.

“Further, unlike previous years, there are various investment-related events of significance in the last quarter of 2021, such as the Dubai Expo and the Intra-African Trade Fair that demand attention,” she said.

“These, alongside the upcoming COP26 and the recently held Symposium on Sustainable Infrastructure Development, provide ample opportunity to showcase policies and projects related to investment as 2021 draws to a close.”

The event has become a mainstay of Ramaphosa’s administration, which seeks to attract about R1.2-trillion into SA over five years. The SA economy shrank 6.4% in 2020, adding renewed urgency to efforts to attract capital to local shores.

Despite several severe lockdowns, the 2020 conference was nevertheless held, largely online, and succeeded in attracting almost R110bn in investment pledges from companies such as Sasol, PepsiCo and Google.

The 2020 pledges were, however, only about a third of 2019’s commitments, which came in at R363bn. Nevertheless, they took the total value of investment commitments generated by the conferences thus far to almost R774bn, or about 64% of the target over five years.

As part of the government’s reconstruction and recovery efforts, Ramaphosa also vowed Gross fixed capital formation to push through long-delayed fell to 13.7% of GDP in 2020 structural reforms aimed at according to SA Reserve Bank improving the ease of doing data, its lowest level since the business and pledged to work mid-1990s and well below the with the private sector in rolling National Development Plan’s out infrastructure. target of 30%.

Nevertheless, amid the fallout In the coming years the Bank from the Covid-19 pandemic, expects investment growth to ongoing policy uncertainty and remain weak — shrinking 0.3% unexpected shocks such as the in 2021, before improving to 0% recent civil unrest, companies in 2022 and 1.8% in 2023. have held back on expansion.