Cape Town - Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka told members of parliament on Wednesday that the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) is making progress in major areas of work, and will make progress "in some key areas".

Speaking in the National Assembly during the debate on the budget of the presidency the deputy president said that infrastructure has always been a cornerstone of AsgiSA.

"We are glad that visible progress has been made in the areas of building or refurbishing power stations, new stadiums for 2010, airports, railway lines, railway stations, harbours, hospitals, pipelines and telecommunications cables," she said.

"We are buying and building hundreds of railway locomotives and railway lines, harbour equipment, electronic road management systems, turbines and boilers among others," she added.

But Mlambo-Ngcuka did acknowledge shortcomings in some areas either as a result of skills shortages or misaligned legislation.

"Even with the current difficulties in the global trading environment, South Africa is attracting large foreign investment and we are also mobilising significant domestic investment, she said.

"As the economies of Europe and North America experience a slowdown, we are attracting a lot of their productive capacity."

She gave MPs a list of investment achievements. They included: a rapid increase in fixed investment activity in South Africa on the back of a massive infrastructure investment drive by government, public corporations as well as by the private sector

The deputy president said there are 74 domestic and foreign investment projects, and an investment pipeline of R206bn.

They include major greenfield projects with significant BEE opportunities, multiplier effects and geographic spread.

She said that the domestic investment projects are at R143bn and foreign investment is at R53bn.

R171bn in the pipeline are committed or in progress.

Manufacturing accounts for R19.7bn; resources account for R182.7bn and R3.6bn will go to services in the pipeline.

"We are pleased with growth in the critical AsgiSA sectors in tourism and BPO (business process outsourcing) and commend cooperation between government, industry and Setas (sector education and training authorities)," the deputy president said.

"This is another good example of collaboration despite many challenges experienced by the Setas," she added.

- I-Net Bridge