Over 1,000 investors attend conference in S Africa; pledge USD 20 bn

Over 1,000 investors, including from India, participated in a conference in South Africa as part of a USD 100 billion investment drive announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in April.

During the conference, the business investors pledged to invest USD 20 billion in South Africa in the next five years.

The investments pledged were in various sectors like mining and automobile manufacturing.

Investment commitments in the mining sector were led by mining giants Anglo American which committed to invest 71.5 billion Rands, followed by India's Vedanta Resources that pledged to invest 21.4 billion Rands.

The automobile manufacturing sector made joint commitments to invest more than 40 billion Rands over the next five years.

Representatives of BMW, Mercedes Benz, Ford, Isuzu, Nissan and Volkswagen took to the stage to sign a pledge which was then presented to Ramaphosa.

"There have been accusations that South Africa is on an investment strike. Today maybe I can say the strike is over," Ramaphosa said.

Ramaphosa lauded the fact that most of the investments were in the areas of beneficiation, innovation and entrepreneurship aimed at supporting young people.

"The number of new jobs and people who will be employed is going to be phenomenal and unprecedented in the history of our country," Ramaphosa said.