LETTER: Asian labour crisis offers SA an opportunity

Nicholas Shubitz outlines the impending demographic crisis in China, Japan and South Korea, and how this threatens the global economy (“East Asian demographic crisis threatens global economy”, February 24).

He is right to be concerned. SA, alongside the rest of the world, is economically linked with the fates of China, Japan and South Korea. China, for one, is SA’s largest import partner and its second-largest export partner. If China’s economy is no longer able to function due to a lack of workers, SA loses a huge source of its manufactured goods.

But a decline in the East is an opportunity for the South. While there will be growing pains and suffering, a change in the economic world order is a potential opportunity for SA. But only if we seize it.

We can replace Chinese imports with local manufacturing. We can find new trade partners. But only if we move away from the governing party’s obsession with socialism and embrace a true free market. Petty regulations on businesses must end, labour laws must become realistic and allow for employees and employers to enter into their own contracts, parastatals must be privatised and the market must provide for the infrastructure that the government has proven incapable of running themselves. BEE, corrupt tendering and other politicisation of what should be purely economic matters must end.

If we can grow our economy and create a free market whereby people can start businesses, get jobs and produce wealth, we won’t need China anymore. And we may even be able to replace them in the global economy. It just takes policy changes, a vision and some hard work. We are up to the task.

Nicholas Woode-Smith
Cape Town

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