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Cape Town - South Africa's drive to attract foreign investment and grow its industrial base is bearing fruit, Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said on Wednesday.
Reports that labour problems, unrest, strikes and politics were putting off foreign investors were exaggerated, he told reporters at Parliament in Cape Town.
Davies was speaking ahead of debate in the National Assembly on his department's R9.6bn budget for this year.
"Let me say [this] about strikes, Marikana, all that type of stuff, [and whether it is] dampening the appetite for industrial investment.
While such events affected the mining industry itself, and portfolio investors, this was not the case in what he called the "real" economy.
"People in the real economy, people who are actually looking at the growth prospects on the African continent, where they can invest. It [the case] is the opposite."
Davies said he had recently consulted the Trade Export SA council on whether investors were pulling out of the country.
"I asked: 'Anybody told you they're withdrawing?' and they said 'No'."
Responding to a question on the threat of de-industrialisation, which he had warned about in 2009, Davies said this had diminished
"That's much less than what it was. Much less than it would have been if we'd done nothing."
Davies cited figures from a recent Grant Thornton international tracker report, in which investors around the world were asked how optimistic they were about the outlook for their country's economy over the next 12 months.
"The global average is 20%; the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) average is 47%; the South African figure is 48%."
Davies said that despite the problems facing South Africa, progress had been made.
"Despite the continuing impact of the global crisis, despite things that may be happening in our country - which are not beneficial to the economy - nonetheless we have seen that where we have intervened purposefully... we have made progress."
Examples of this intervention included the automotive and clothing sectors. There had been important achievements in metals fabrication industries, important gains in sectors such as business process services, and progress in industries such as film.
Foreign investment was growing.
"Whatever problems we have in the economy in relation to short-term capital inflows, in relation to perceptions of rating agencies and whatever, the fact of the matter is that we have a growing and constant pipeline of foreign direct investment."
This involved foreign companies that "realise that South Africa is a place they need to be involved in, that the African continent is the next investment frontier, and that South Africa is an integral and critical part of the industrialisation process on the African continent".
The DTI had attracted billions in foreign investment over the past three years.
"Over the period since 2010/11, the DTI facilitated R125.5bn in foreign direct investment... in the bricks and mortar economy.
"And at the end of the 2012/13 financial year (in March this year), we had attracted R53.5bn in investments."
Davies said massive problems remained to be solved, but said South Africa appeared to have turned in the right direction.
"Of course we've got massive problems. We have not yet achieved what I think we said we needed to achieve -- a growth path driven by the productive sectors... we haven't yet achieved this. But we're beginning to turn the corner... ," he said.
