A falling unemployment rate is making it easier to market South Africa to foreign investors, the head of International Marketing Council (IMC) said on Saturday.
”The good news on job creation makes it easier to market South Africa as a primary destination for investment, trade and tourism from abroad,” Yvonne Johnston, chief executive officer of the IMC, said in a statement.
Recent economic statistics had shown that the South African economy was creating jobs.
”The most recent statistics show that the economy is beginning to create jobs,” she said.
The latest labour force survey released by Statistics South Africa shows a gain of more than 250 000 jobs in the six months to September 2004.
According to the Statistics South Africa’s Labour Force Survey, which was released earlier this month, 3,4-million of the country’s 15-million economically active South Africans were unemployed in September last year.
Johnston said with initiatives like the government’s expanded public works programme, which aims to spend between R15-billion and R20-billion on infrastructure development over the next five years, unemployment was set to continue falling.
The programme, launched in May last year, aims to employ one million people by 2010. – Sapa