Tuesday, April 9, 2019

South Africa’s investment facilitation efforts have borne fruit, with the country taking home the Investment Promotion Award.

“South Africa’s investment mobilisation drive is gaining traction and the latest data from South African Reserve Bank and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) indicates a major increase in Foreign Direct Investments from previous years. 

“We have turned the corner, improving our investment climate and investor facilitation service,” said Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies on Tuesday.

South Africa took home the Investment Promotion Award at the 2019 Annual Investment Meeting (AIM) held in Dubai. AIM is the world’s leading FDI platform.

AIM recognised Invest SA for facilitating the most innovative and digitally orientated investment projects for 2018.  

The ninth annual meeting attracted invest promotion agencies from around world, delegates from 140 countries, government officials, practitioners and investors.

Davies said the award reaffirms the commitments announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa during his State of the Nation Address (SONA) to align SA’s economic development priorities on securing innovative investment projects in digital and technology fields to ensure the country is able to achieve Vision 2030 goals.

He said South Africa is a renowned investment destination that protects investor rights, is signatory to international treaties that reinforce trade in goods and services, and safeguards intellectual property.

“Policy certainty on [the] South African ICT landscape and noticeable improvements on FDI ranking indices have underpinned the strides South Africa has made in securing investment in digital, ICT and 4th Industrial Revolution industries (4IR),” he said.

The Minister said InvestSA will continue to lead efforts to improve the investment digital infrastructure environment, facilitation of digital skills development initiatives and with domestic stakeholders, it will address supply side constraints to enhance the attractiveness of the sector.

InvestSA has held targeted investment drives geared at growing uptake and usage of digital services that will support ICT enabled solutions across South African industrial sectors.

The award not only highlights South Africa’s propensity to exploit opportunities offered by cloud computing, the Internet of Things and machine learning but supports South Africa’s endeavours in 4IR industries, said Davies.

He said through the “One Stop Shop” approach, InvestSA can compete among the best and is capable today of facilitating large scale investment projects and has developed a significant investment pipeline.  

In October last year, South Africa was named the Global Destination of the Year at the 2018 Global Sourcing Association Awards ceremony in Cape Town. – SAnews.gov.za