Johannesburg - There’s an 80% chance that the economic upturn is only temporary and that difficult times will be with us for another three to five years, reckons strategist and scenario planner Clem Sunter.
The trouble leading to the recession has not disappeared. The cause was massive debt – first at banks, and now by governments. But while a bank can be helped by government, who can help governments?
On Thursday at the launch of the International Franchise Expo Sunter warned that the rules of the game would change after the recession.
He said that banks would in future be much, much more strictly regulated, especially internationally. Credit would no longer be easy to obtain, and for the first time in 600 years Asia would be economically equal to the West.
Growth would be driven by new technologies that would focus on preserving resources such as oil, minerals and water.
Sunter said South Africa's biggest challenge was to establish centres of excellence.
In almost any area that one could think of the country has centres that are simply world-class – the aim must be to enhance them, not to tear them down.
Examples of excellence include the South African Revenue Service (Sars) and the Red Cross Children's Hospital.
Sars should be used as a model to improve the service delivery of other state departments, said Sunter. South Africa has one of the top 10 children's hospitals in the world, and it’s a government hospital.
Why couldn’t Red Cross be used as a model to raise standards at Groote Schuur and Chris Hani Baragwanath, he asked.
Sunter said South Africa should develop a dual economy – a competitive export-focused economy that, by focusing on the country's strong points, earned foreign exchange, and an inward-looking economy that focused on small enterprises.
He reckoned that sectors needing attention included the development of the resources and wine industries, as well as increased marketing of South Africa as a gateway to the rest of the continent.
Sunter said the US, Japan, China and Germany would not have been able to develop into the world's top four economies had it not been for a major focus on the development of small enterprises and entrepreneurship.
- Sake24.com
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