We raised the matter of an agreement that was reached at the Growth and Development Summit, which was that we should access a certain part, 5% was mentioned, of the funds in the hands of the institutional investors, domestically, for investment in the real economy. That being an agreement of the Growth and Development Summit, we will engage South African business to see how we can make that a practical thing. So, there is a different set of engagement with local business.
Thabo MbekiIf we don't move forward with regard to creating a non-racial society in South Africa and we allow this legacy of apartheid to persist, these divisions between black and white in wealth and income and so on, in the future you would indeed have an ugly upheaval.
Thabo MbekiAs Africans, we need to share common recognition that all of us stand to lose if we fail to transform our continent.
Thabo MbekiI think the critical point, really, is that we need to focus black economic empowerment more on the creation of new wealth rather than on these big deals that have been characteristic of this process in the past, of people going to banks, borrowing a lot of money, buying this and when the shares don't perform very well, the shares go back to the banks, because there's other people who own this anyway. I think we need to re-focus it so that it really does impact on growth, new investment, new employment and a general, better spread of wealth in South Africa.
Thabo MbekiFor instance with regard to tourism, that we should be able to target people who are interested in investing in the tourism sector and explain that this is the size of the market, these are the incentives in this particular area, this is the capacity, this is what is needed.
Thabo MbekiWhen I was in government, the South African economy was growing at 4.5% - 5%. But then came the global financial crisis of 2008/2009, and so the global economy shrunk. That hit South Africa very hard, because then the export markets shrunk, and that includes China, which has become one of the main trade partners with South Africa. Also, the slowdown in the Chinese economy affected South Africa. The result was that during that whole period, South Africa lost something like a million jobs because of external factors.
Thabo Mbeki