Johannesburg - Next month various business leaders and infrastructure experts will be in South Africa to participate in the third annual Infrastructure Africa Business Forum, to be held at the Sandton Convention Centre.
The country has experienced sluggish economic growth, with economists lamenting that the country could be on the brink of recession, after the economy contracted by 0.6 percent in the first quarter.
To add to the woes, Fitch Ratings changed South Africa’s outlook from stable to negative, while Standard & Poor’s (S&P) downgraded the country to just a notch above junk grade. The downgrades were attributed to the platinum strike and constrained manufacturing output.
Liz Hart, the managing director of Siyenza Management, the event organiser, said this year’s forum would look at unlocking some of the enormous growth potential in Africa’s infrastructure sectors.
The event will take place on July 21 and 22, and its strategic partners include the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development and New Partnership for Africa’s Development’s Planning and Co-ordinating Agency, and the Development Bank of Southern Africa.
“It will address a myriad of issues raised by national governments, regional businesses and infrastructure players as they seek new opportunities of growth and address bottlenecks in the African infrastructure space,” Hart said.
Among the core issues to be addressed is the formulation of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa. This continental initiative, based on regional projects and programmes, seeks to address the infrastructure deficit that hampers Africa’s competitiveness in the world market.
Explaining some of the key problems, Hart said Africa was experiencing rapid economic growth and urbanisation in many of its countries, making the demand for energy more urgent, yet the continent remained a net energy exporter.
Also, closing Africa’s infrastructure financing gap would not only involve raising additional funds, but also improve the efficiency with which existing resources were used.
Lack of timely maintenance activities, inefficiency of distribution networks, weak revenue collection performance, under-pricing of services and low capital budget execution all led to the wastage of the resources available for infrastructure development, she said.
The conference, according to Hart, would address these issues and look at maximising the continent’s agricultural potential, as well as transport, investment and project developments.
In addition, information and communication technology and telecoms will be at the forefront as business leaders try to translate the mobile sector boom into growth.
“The lack of existing infrastructure and future investments is a key factor hampering Africa’s economic development and constraining trade and job creation. Without an adequate infrastructure endowment, Africa is at risk of sacrificing about 2 percent of gross domestic growth annually,” Hart said.