Soon after he came to office in 2018, President Cyril Ramaphosa promised to recruit R1.2-trillion in foreign direct investment to SA to help solve inequality, poverty and unemployment — the systemic threats to the country’s stability. SA’s private sector joined in. 

The annual investment conferences, which were well choreographed at the Sandton Convention Centre until the interruption of Covid-19, attracted billions of rand in pledges in new and sustaining capital investments. Mostly these sessions — one of which was attended by Chinese tech billionaire Jack Ma — were stage-managed, and had very little interaction. ..

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