Johannesburg - President Jacob Zuma yesterday highlighted the importance of his state visit to Nigeria taking place amid a depressed global economic climate.
Addressing South African and Nigerian business delegates, Zuma said it was important to build relations between the two countries and to deepen economic co-operation.
The Nigerian trip comes at a crucial time as Zuma and his government try to rebuild investment confidence.
Read: Africa needs diverse economies - Zuma
Zuma particularly needs to ramp up economic growth in South Africa after the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank recently predicted the economy would grow by less than 1 percent this year. Rating agencies have also weighed in on the country’s economic prospects, threatening to downgrade it to junk status – a move that would increasing the cost of borrowing.
“The global economic downturn has impacted both our economies due to the falling prices of the commodities from which we gain much of our revenue,” Zuma said. “These developments have just made it more urgent that we diversify away from our reliance on raw materials and fast track our industrialisation and regional integration efforts.”
Opened up
Nigeria has opened up its economy to South African companies in various sectors such as engineering, telecommunications, construction, aviation, media, hospitality, banking, hospitality, entertainment, property, retail, and oil and gas exploration services.
In discussions with President Mohammadu Buhari, Zuma noted growing co-operation in many sectors including trade and investment, defence and security, immigration matters, energy and mineral resources among others.
The South Africa-Nigeria Business Council would be formalised to assist in managing and advancing the economic relations between the two countries. “We welcome this significant development. We would like to see the numbers of Nigerian investments in South Africa also increasing, as we promote two way trade between these two nations,” Zuma said.
Regional integration was an important aspiration of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 to which both countries subscribed. The planned integrated market in Africa would see a market of more than 1 billion people and $2.6 trillion, he said.
“Business in both countries should also begin pursuing opportunities that will come about as a result of regional integration and intra-Africa trade efforts, which will create the Continental Free Trade Area,” Zuma said.
He said some of these partnerships would be enabled by our development finance institutions such as
the Industrial Development Co-operation.
The IDC was also holding discussions on the future collaboration to develop the mining sector in Nigeria. It was also exploring other avenues of investment and had led sessions on opportunities for partnerships during this visit.
“The SA Bureau of Standards would be co-operating with its Nigerian counterpart in the harmonisation of standards in terms of trade facilitation,” Zuma said.
BUSINESS REPORT