Participants in the South Africa-Italy Summit 2014 left the event believing that the two countries had laid a solid foundation in trade and investment.
Dr Iqbal Survé, the executive chairman of Independent Newspapers, which was one of the sponsors, told participants that Africa was the next frontier.
Survé, who gave the closing address at the two-day indaba in Cape Town on Friday, said the continent offered investors many opportunities.
In his visits to the US, China and Europe last month, he said, he found that business leaders agreed there was a lot of wealth in the world, running into trillions of dollars, that must be harnessed for development and the creation of jobs to tackle poverty.
The summit, the first of its kind between the two countries, attracted 100 participants, including the chief executives of leading companies in South Africa and Italy.
Politicians who took part included former cabinet members Zola Skweyiya and Alec Erwin.
Co-operative Governance Minister Pravin Gordhan also addressed the gathering.
Survé said Africa could expect the flow of investments to be in the region of $600 billion (R6.7 trillion) in the next decade.
“My advice to my Italian colleagues is ‘forget the noise’. If you are an entrepreneur forget the noise,” he said.
“The fact is, the gap in Africa is huge. The gap in South Africa is huge.”
He promised that there would be investment in infrastructure development on the continent.
South Africa alone would invest R4 trillion in infrastructure over the next 10 years.
This was also pointed out by Gordhan, former South African finance minister, when he addressed the event on Thursday.
Survé added that the two countries must fully use the gathering to forge strong trade relations.
Italy’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lapo Pistelli, said he agreed with the views of various business leaders, expressed during the discussions, on strengthening ties on all fronts.
He said the president of the Black Business Council, Ndaba Ntsele, was spot on when he said they had to move from talking to delivery.
He said they wanted to facilitate more political visits to South Africa.
The last political visit had been by their foreign affairs minister seven years ago.
“We have a number of companies that would like to be international. They are looking for the silver bullet. They are looking for which country to go to,” he said.
He said they would now encourage more Italian companies to come to South Africa as it was the gateway to Africa and had good infrastructure.
Paolo Borzatta, who is a senior partner of the organisers of the summit, the think tank European House-Ambrosetti, said the meeting had been a success.
It had been rich in discussions and the ideas thrown around had been hitting the right notes, said Borzatta.
He urged his business colleagues to play by the rules when investing in Africa.
“No short cuts. This is important. Many people in my country coming to Africa think there are short cuts,” he said.
This was similar to the message, delivered earlier by Erwin, that foreign investors must do their homework before coming to Africa and must not take short cuts and grease the palms of politicians.
There were huge opportunities for Italy to do business in South Africa and the continent, said Borzatta.
South Africa could once again become the leading economy in Africa as Germany was in Europe, he said.