Latest figures from the Reserve Bank show that investment spending continued its downward slide in the second quarter, with private sector investment plummeting and foreign direct investment into SA going negative. So it will not help that SA has just received a crushing evaluation from the World Economic Forum (WEF). It finds that SA has fallen sharply down the global competitiveness ladder and, even more disturbingly, is losing some of the key competitive advantages it has long relied on to attract investment. This is the survey SA constantly trumpets, in which it used to be number one in the world for its auditing and reporting standards. No longer: SA has fallen 30 places in the auditing rankings in 2107. It has crashed too on the measures of financial market strength where it had long ranked near the top, falling 33 notches down the WEF’s scale.Along with that, corruption has emerged in the WEF’s survey of executive perceptions as the most problematic factor for doing business ...

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