EDITORIAL: Team SA sets off for WEF

The annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos has come around again and a team of government and business leaders will set off for Switzerland this weekend.

The WEF, which is a commercial enterprise founded by Klaus Shwab, is no longer as relevant as it used to be. Nor is it important to SA in the way it used to be in the days when we needed to re-establish ourselves in the world and financial markets.

SA now has many other platforms to engage investors and new government of national unity ministers have been doing so exhaustively in recent months, in London, New York, Washington and elsewhere.

So it’s worth asking whether the exorbitant costs and time involved in attending the Davos meetings are worth it. But as trade industry & competition minister Parks Tau said this week, it does get SA into conversations in the world’s most important boardrooms.

As business leaders in “Team SA” point out, SA at least has a more compelling story to tell this year. Where in previous years it tended to talk about its plans for reforms, now it can point to the first important signs of execution, particularly in energy, where load-shedding has become a thing of the past. Much of that is thanks to the partnership between business and the government, which distinguishes SA from the rest and is a big selling point for the country.

Hopefully, the fruits will soon start to show in higher rates of economic growth and investment.