HILARY JOFFE: Sure, investment billions are welcome, but how fresh are they?
The government needs to push harder as many of the projects would have happened anyway
It felt like a throwback to a bygone, pre-pandemic era. There were 1,000 people in the Sandton Convention Centre and hundreds of police outside to guard and guide the dignitaries. There were masks, but also hugs and high heels — and plenty of glitz and networking.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s fourth investment conference felt like a return to old times. And to listen to his opening address one might have imagined that though the pandemic had scarred the world and SA, nothing much else new was happening. No mention in his opening address of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the threat of a world war (hardly surprising given the president’s resolute fence-sitting on the matter). Nor any reference to the wild swings in global commodity prices or that emerging markets could no longer rely on the friendly global financial conditions of the past decade...
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