MONDAY, 7.30PM:
SOUTH Africa will not ask United States Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin for emergency aid to help its troubled economy, a Finance Ministry spokesman said on Monday. Rubin will arrive in Gauteng on Monday night on the second leg of a five-nation African tour. Finance spokesman Logan Wart said South Africa does not need aid because its economic fundamentals are sound.
On his first stop, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Rubin told a meeting of financiers that political stability, sound macroeconomic policy and a commitment to a free market will attract private capital to Africa. He noted that sub-Saharan Africa attracted less than 3% of total long-term private capital flows to developing countries last year, and said that although moves to democracy had attracted some attention, Africa still has a long way to go to become stabilised.