Star 2023-11-06

CAS COOVADIA, the CEO of Business Unity South Africa (Busa), said at the Agoa Forum on Friday that he expected South Africa to reach 3% economic growth in 2025. “At the moment we are concentrating on stopping the slide jointly with the government through various crisis committees. Next year we expect to turn the ship around and by the end of next year we expect to show significant progress so that we can reach 3% growth in 2025,” Coovadia said. The formal collaboration between business and government was initiated in June 2023 with the aim of significantly growing South Africa’s economy, by restoring public and investor confidence through critical interventions to address the key challenges of energy, logistics, as well as crime and corruption. A critical part of engendering investor…

Spokesperson for Implats confirms to BR that the company’s mutual retrenchment exercise is being implemented AFTER delaying management salary increases and cutting capital spend, Impala Platinum (Implats), which completed the acquisition of Royal Bafokeng Platinum three months ago, has initiated a voluntary retrenchment exercise at its head office and Rustenburg operations on a one-month’s notice and two weeks’ pay for every year of service completed. Another big platinum miner, Sibanye-Stillwater, said last month that a restructuring of its platinum group metals (PGM) operations in South Africa could result in the retrenchment of more than 4 000 workers. Implats recently said that it was cutting capital expenditure for some of its projects, including its Zimplats operation in Zimbabwe, as the commo- dity downturn ate into profitability of miners of the…

COUNTRIES in the sub-Saharan African region would lose out more than South Africa if the duty-free trade benefits under the multi-million dollar Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) are withdrawn from Africa’s most advanced economy. This was the rallying cry of many delegates, including President Cyril Ramaphosa, at the 20th Agoa Forum, which came to an end on Saturday in Johannesburg. South Africa’s ongoing eligibility for expanded duty-free access to US markets through Agoa has become uncertain in recent months following the government’s geopolitical stance concerning Russia and the war in Ukraine. Agoa provides eligible sub-Saharan African countries with duty-free access to the US market for more than 1 800 products, in addition to the more than 5 000 products that are eligible for duty-free access under the…

ON THE EVE of the 20th Agoa Forum 2023, the Biden Administration announced significant changes to the list of sovereign States that will be eligible for preferential trading access under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa). For 2024, the White House has reinstated the eligibility of Mauritania and terminated the eligi- bility of Central African Republic, Gabon, Niger and Uganda. These actions carry significant domestic and foreign policy implications. One of the most important is that they will reinforce the notion that the Biden Administration sees Agoa as a useful tool for coercing African governments into alignment with US national security and foreign policy interests. That may be welcomed by Members of Congress. However, it could also lead to blowback from African governments. Background context Each year, a sovereign…

THE SECRETARY-general of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Wamkele Mene, told a media briefing at the 20th African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) Forum in Johannesburg that there should be complementarity between Agoa and AfCFTA. “What we need to do is ensure that a new Agoa that excludes certain African countries does not lead to fragmentation of the African market,” Mene said. The AfCFTA is a free trade area currently containing 47 countries. In response to a question about whether he had received any cancellations of delegates and exhibitors to the third Inter Africa Trade Fair (IATF) that will be hosted in Cairo, Egypt, from November 9 to 15, he said he was not aware of any cancellations and as far as he was concerned the Egyptian government…

CONGRESS of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Zingiswa Losi said at the 20th African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) Forum that Agoa had created 450 000 jobs in South Africa since it was enacted in 2000 and that is why the trade union supported its extension beyond September 2025. “We have come here to be with some 70 other trade union federations from Africa and our partner American labour unions to protect existing jobs and create new jobs. This is the first time that labour unions have been part of the discussions at the forum, but we were part of the South African delegation that went to Washington in December last year and July this year to make the case for the extension of Agoa to 2035 and…