KwaZulu-Natal businesses are being urged to take advantage of the strong economic ties being forged between South Africa and its partners within the BRICS countries.
Comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the BRICS block is currently hosting a two- day summit in Johannesburg.
KZN, which hosted the 2013 BRICS summit, hosted two BRICS business seminars as part of the build up to the summit last week.
Speaking on the BRICS summit and the need for the province to attract investments flowing from the BRICS partnership, KZN MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (EDTEA) Siboniso Duma, said BRICS presented the province with an opportunity for economic growth.
“We want to state unequivocally that our long-term success lies in the integration of our economy with economies of the countries in the BRICS bloc. We strongly believe that KZN cannot prosper in isolation,” he said.
The five BRICS countries, whose joint population is close to half of the world’s population, represents 24% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).
However, despite being strong economies, the five countries’ trade among each other is less than 10%, with the bulk of their trade being with Western countries.
At the BRICS summit, the leaders of the five countries will seek ways to increase trade between the BRICS countries.
Mr Duma said his department had already developed a programme seeking to capitalise on BRICS trade and investment opportunities.
“Through our entities Trade and Investment KwaZulu-Natal, Dube Trade Port and Richards Bay Industry Development Zone, we have developed a programme that will ensure that we present to the potential investors key areas that should be considered for investment,” he said.
Trade and Investment KwaZulu-Natal Board member, Derek Naidoo, said since its formation in 2010, BRICS had created benefits for citizens of member countries.
A signature accomplishment of the BRICS partnership has been the establishment of the New Development Bank (NDB) which saw the strengthening of intra-BRICS co-operation during the Covid-19 pandemic.
KwaZulu Natal premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube, addressing the BRICS Women’s Business Alliance (WBA) Trade Summit held on Sunday, said as female business owners and decision makers, there was a role to be played to contest the global trade and investment terrain with “all our might”.
Referring to the President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde’s contention earlier this year that the rise of global trade was intricately tied to women’s emancipation, Ms Dube-Ncube said that in developing countries, firms that traded internationally were also those which employed more women and that women made up a third of the workforce of such firms.
She said KZN, as the country’s second biggest contributor to the GDP, was an economic powerhouse and a highly competitive investment destination.
“Not only do we boast a world class multi-modal transport system and are home to two Special Economic Zones (Dube Trade Port and Richards Bay Industrial Development Zone), we are hard at work resuscitating manufacturing which has always been our strong point.
“As things stand, under the auspices of the country’s custodian of ports, rail and pipelines Transnet SOC, we are rolling out the more than R150 billion expansion of the country’s premier ports which are located in our province, namely the Port of Durban and the Port of Richards Bay. Close to 600 000 direct and indirect jobs will be created during implementation,” said Ms Dube-Ncube.
