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Speaker 1: Seven to Live from the sixth South Africa Investment Conference

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Speaker 1: Conference Africa's most compelling investment Destination, twenty.

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Speaker 2: Five minutes to twelve o'clock. Thanks very much for joining us.

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Speaker 2: That sound just says that we're coming to live from

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Speaker 2: the Sentence Convention Center on the occasion of South Africa

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Speaker 2: Investment Conference, and their takeline is invest partner and prosper

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Speaker 2: You had presidents a Roma Possa dipped into his keynote

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Speaker 2: address opening speech at least, and he was mentioning that

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Speaker 2: the two trillion that was set as a target may

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Speaker 2: just be a little bit less. He's aiming for more

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Speaker 2: and he said that today, only today, about nine hundred

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Speaker 2: billion may just be on the table. Some of you

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Speaker 2: have been skeptical. You've said that we've had these things before.

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Speaker 2: But we have to push and persist because this affects

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Speaker 2: both you and I directly and otherwise in front of me.

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Speaker 2: Bussima Vosso, who needs no introduction at all, and I've

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Speaker 2: pulled it out of these discussions just to try to

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Speaker 2: get have views. I know that her views are very

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Speaker 2: popular with you, and she always puts things into perspective,

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Speaker 2: and we wanted to find out heir hair perspective about

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Speaker 2: this end of course, she is CEO of Business Leadership

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Speaker 2: South Africa. Ma'n, thanks so so much for your time.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to seven out too, Good morning.

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Speaker 1: A table, good morning, and thank you very much for

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Speaker 1: the invitation.

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Speaker 2: Your impressions so far, especially about the two trillion target?

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Speaker 2: Is it attainable?

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Speaker 1: It definitely is attainable, Tabot, but I think my consent

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Speaker 1: would be So this is the second cycle of the

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Speaker 1: investment conference pledges of what are the cases? The first

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Speaker 1: cycle we had a target of one point the first

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Speaker 1: cycle we were a target of one point two trillion rands.

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Speaker 1: We collected an actual of one point five trillion runs.

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Speaker 1: But I actually have to wonder what was the tangible

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Speaker 1: evidence on the ground that South Africa had collected one

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Speaker 1: point five trillion runs? And if that evidence was not

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Speaker 1: very clear, should we not be shifting the measure this

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Speaker 1: time around instead of saying two trillion rens? Should we

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Speaker 1: not be saying we're sitting at thirty three percent unemployment

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Speaker 1: after the five year cycle, would like to be sitting

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Speaker 1: at I don't know, twenty eight percent. We have poverty

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Speaker 1: levels of sixty percent. Should we not be saying would

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Speaker 1: like to reduce the poverty levels by fifty percent. You know,

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Speaker 1: I really think that it would resonate better with an

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Speaker 1: ordinary average South African if we actually had reduced these

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Speaker 1: targets to those tangible things, Because at the end of

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Speaker 1: the day, when all of this is certa and done,

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Speaker 1: people would like to see what does this mean for me?

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Speaker 1: Because otherwise it's just a facade, it's.

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Speaker 2: Such a raid.

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Speaker 1: It's not a conversation of the elite in these air

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Speaker 1: conditioned offices of sentence. So I really think that our

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Speaker 1: measure and what we focus on, you know, is really

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Speaker 1: going to have to be different. So we may attain

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Speaker 1: two trillion rants, but what is it going to mean,

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Speaker 1: you know for the sixty five million in South Africa?

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Speaker 2: How contrusive is the climate for business to want to

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Speaker 2: invest in South Africa, notwithstanding various political social things that

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Speaker 2: we have been experiencing off late.

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Speaker 1: And I really think probably maybe this is what is

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Speaker 1: very different about this investment conference and this investment cycle.

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Speaker 1: We are definitely having it in a totally different environment

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Speaker 1: than what we had the first cycle. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: no longer have load shedding. It's amazing to think that

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three, we had two hundred and ten

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Speaker 1: eighty three days of load shedding out of three hundred

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Speaker 1: and sixty five twenty twenty five, only twelve days of

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Speaker 1: load shedding. Actually, structural load shedding is over. Generation of

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Speaker 1: electricity is no longer the constraint. The constraint is now transmission.

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Speaker 1: You're sitting with the transport and logistics that is now functioning.

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Speaker 1: You know, we set with nineteen kilometers queues of trucks

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Speaker 1: outside of the temn pots. You're only sitting with three

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Speaker 1: kilometers now. You know, you have so much investment that

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Speaker 1: has actually been committed in Richard's paid temen, in the

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Speaker 1: Cape Town ports, in the Richard's Bay Ports, and so

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Speaker 1: forth and so forth. The President spoke at length about

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Speaker 1: the need to focus on the water infrastructure, and that

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Speaker 1: is precisely focusing on the right things. You know, we

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Speaker 1: spoke a lot about the municipal dysfunctionality and how that

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Speaker 1: needs to be focused on. I really think that you

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Speaker 1: are going to see a lot of interest from the

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Speaker 1: private sector, from the investor community wanting to invest in

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Speaker 1: South Africa. So Africa is quite strategic in the African continent.

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Speaker 1: You know, we are the gateway to the African continent.

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Speaker 1: We are the continent of the future. We have the

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Speaker 1: population to pick it up. The rest of the world

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Speaker 1: is sitting with capital, but they don't have human resources.

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Speaker 1: They don't have human capital. Human capital is sitting here.

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Speaker 1: You know. The growth that we're going to get as

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Speaker 1: a country from a population perspective, twenty fifth you're going

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Speaker 1: to be sitting at what two point seven billion people

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Speaker 1: while the rest of the world is actually reducing their

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Speaker 1: population growth. So I really think we're onto something.

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Speaker 2: And all of this happens also, interestingly, we're expecting the

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Speaker 2: high of fuel process and the conflict that is currently

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Speaker 2: taking place influencing all of this also has to be

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Speaker 2: taken into consideration. I'm wondering if we will be able

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Speaker 2: to somehow leverage on the strengths that you've mentioned given

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Speaker 2: the crisis that is taking place as well, you.

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Speaker 1: Know, probably maybe the true opportunities and there could be many,

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Speaker 1: but the two that are there is that since the

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Speaker 1: Strait of Homos has actually been closed, you're seeing a

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Speaker 1: lot of vessels what do they call them, is it

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Speaker 1: ships or is it vessels? Vessels coming through the cape

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Speaker 1: the Red Sea, you know, and the Cape Root, So

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Speaker 1: there is an opportunity while that dislocation is actually happening,

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Speaker 1: there is an opportunity for South Africa to probably maybe

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Speaker 1: position ourselves better. This could be a permanent route of

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Speaker 1: the Strait of Homose, you know, doesn't give the set

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Speaker 1: to invest us. The second one is probably maybe from

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Speaker 1: a tourism perspective Tabo. If people can no longer go

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Speaker 1: to the Middle East, if people can no longer go

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Speaker 1: to Tupas you know, we have recorded a ten million

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Speaker 1: tourists you know target this year. Can we probably maybe

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Speaker 1: increase that, Can we find a way of shifting you

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Speaker 1: know that tourism to South So I think those are

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Speaker 1: just the two that we can try.

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Speaker 2: Our good speak to you for days on end. Sadly

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Speaker 2: we have limited time and I'm hoping that we'll make

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Speaker 2: time in one of our shows to have you for

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Speaker 2: a longer discussion because I know that there's so much

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Speaker 2: information that you need to share with us. But next

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Speaker 2: time around, really appreciate your time.

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Speaker 1: Ye, thank you so much.

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Speaker 2: We see Mavosa, CEO of Business Leadership South Africa, was

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Speaker 2: joining us for that discussion. We're here at the Sentence

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Speaker 2: Convention Center South Africa. Investment Conference twenty eighteen minutes to

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Speaker 2: twelve o'clock