Star 2024-04-25

ONE OF CHINA’s cities, Shenzhen, has expressed a keen interest in partnering with South African companies to promote innovation and entrepreneurship to create a better future. This is according to the director of the development and reform commission of Shenzhen municipality, Guo Ziping. Guo told the Shenzhen-South Africa Investment Promotion Conference yesterday that there was so much that Shenzhen could offer to South Africa, especially when it came to technology and innovation. “Shenzhen has changed from a small sleepy fishing village in 1978, when it became China’s first Special Economic Zone (SEZ), to a wealthy modern metro by embracing innovation and entrepreneurship, which is why it is home to more than 300 of the Fortune500 companies,” she said. Shenzhen has a population of 18 million, far less than South…

ARCELORMITTAL South Africa (Amsa) has been caught up in a global protest action due to allegations of environmental pollution and degradation by the international steel giant, which is accused of lacking transparency and dragging its feet to attain standard carbon emission reduction targets. Amsa is a large steel manufacturer in South Africa that has threatened to close some of its operations owing to infrastructure inefficiencies to do with electricity, rail and ports. While it has battled a worsening operating environment, Amsa has now found itself in the cross waves of a global protest action for environmental harm at some of its South African operations. The Fair Steel Coalition, representing affected communities from areas where Amsa has steel manufacturing operations in South Africa, Liberia and elsewhere, will be staging protests at…

NEDBANK has flagged an unstable coalition government that would undo the current framework on Public- Private Participation (PPP) post the May 29 election, as well as the possible election of Donald Trump as US Presi- dent in November, as two major risk events to investor confidence. This comes as surveys and analysts continue to forecast the ruling ANC’s loss of majority support at the polls, which would force the governing party to seek support from minority parties to form a government. Nedbank Group senior economist Isaac Matshego yesterday said President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration had done so much to restore investor confidence by shifting towards a partnership between the public and private sectors. Among others, Matshego highlighted a strong investment in renewable energy by the private sector, new Transnet management, and…

DR IQBAL Survé, the chairperson of Independent Media, yesterday welcomed the move by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) to take banks to task for bank account closures over reputational risk, but said the organisation was failing in its duty to protect South Africans from banks. The FSCA commissioner, Unathi Kamlana, in a speech to the Banking Association of South Africa’s Banking on Ethics Conference last week, highlighted that the financial sector was taking proactive measures to prevent breaches of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) measures due to South Africa being greylisted. But Kamlana emphasised that closing bank accounts on reputation risk put banks on shaky ground. He said: “However, some of the actions of the banks which have been particularly contentious in this area…

IT IS THE end of April and millions of cartons of citrus are heading to our ports as export season starts. Last year, South African growers packed 165.1 million 15kg cartons for foreign destinations. South Africa is the second largest citrus exporter in the world. Roughly 55 million cartons of that total – meaning, one third – went to Europe. Without the continued stability of that enormous market, the viability of citrus farms would collapse for most growers. For many years, citrus growers have been facing an increasing threat: unnecessary, excessively restrictive and unscientific phytosanitary (plant health) trade measures imposed by the EU on exports of South African citrus fruit. To its great credit, the South African government has acknowledged and addressed this trade threat on an international…

THE BUSINESS rescue practitioners (BRPs) acting on behalf of the Post Office yesterday said it had entered into a collective agreement with three unions. The BRP said that the agreement with Sapwu, Depacu and the CWU was reached after consultations were finalised on March 22. The BRPs said: “Despite the finalisation and that retrenchment notices had been issued to relevant employees, the negotiating parties continued exploring alternatives to limit the effects and the number of employees affected by the retrenchments. “In an attempt to limit the number of employees affected by the retrenchments, the negotiating parties approached the Department of Labour’s Single Adjudication Committee in a final attempt to pursue its application for the Temporary Employer, Employees Relief Scheme (Ters). The Ters application commenced during the provisional liquidation status of…