Johannesburg - President Cyril Ramaphosa has hailed the recently concluded G20 summit in Japan as a success, saying it presented the world with a platform to address major economic challenges engulfing the globe.
Ramaphosa said the meeting also gave South Africa a chance to woo Japanese investments to the country.
Speaking after concluding his two-day visit to Japan, where the meeting was attended by heads of state and government of the G20 member countries - which collectively account for 85% of global economic activity and two-thirds of the world’s population - Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Khusela Diko, said in the interest of advancing African development, the leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the timely implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.
Future summits would also take stock of progress in curbing illicit financial flows. This is one of the issues that is believed to be crippling economies of developing and poor countries.
“On trade and investment, the summit committed to work towards a free, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent, predictable, stable and open market environment.
“Additionally, the G20 would implement the anti-corruption action plan for 2019-2021, which strengthens synergies among related international instruments. There is also (a) strong will among a majority of the member countries to pursue the 2015 Paris Agreement’s goals of dealing with climate change,” Diko said.
Prior to the summit, Ramaphosa convened the standing trilateral meeting with the AU chairperson, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, and Nepad chairperson President Macky Sall of Senegal.
Diko said the president also had numerous bilateral meetings to strengthen relations with Russia, China, Japan and Saudi Arabia, as well as the president of the World Bank .
Economist Professor Bonke Dumisa said by the look of things, the trip was a successful one as the country was able to achieve several objectives under difficult circumstances.
He said most of the work at such summits was not done by heads of state, but by ministers and officials, and he singled out ministers like Tito Mboweni and Naledi Pandor as star performers when it came to excelling behind the scenes.
Dumisa said he was happy that the summit provided an opportunity for South Africa to tell the world there was no economic and political uncertainty in the country, despite the recurring debate on the sensitive land expropriation issue.