At an average of 2,5% of gross domestic product, levels of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into Africa are not as low as generally believed, especially relative to Africa’s market size compared with the rest of the world, according to the World Bank’s Alan Gelb. But South Africa in particular has recently recorded FDI flows that are well below their potential.
The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) was marginally stronger in noon trade on Friday in a market that was extremely quiet ahead of the release of United States non-farm payrolls data at 2.30pm. Gold stocks pared the bourses gains, tumbling on the back of a lower bullion price and a poor performance by their ADRs in the US overnight.
It wasn’t an instance where absence made the heart grow fonder. A three-day regional conference on improving access to Aids treatments held in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, in March failed to attract a single government representative from the host country. About 150 delegates from elsewhere in the region attended the summit.
The South African Chamber of Business has won a $20 000 award for its simple toolkit to assist small and medium enterprises address HIV/Aids in their workplaces. The chamber also won accolades for its strategy to monitor the implementation of this product through its chamber movement.
The National Treasury has over the past two weeks created space for the South African Reserve Bank to cut interest rates at the next monetary policy committee meeting on June 9 and 10. One of the reasons for not cutting interest rates at the February and April MPC meetings was concern about the future course of oil prices.
ThisDay newspaper’s editorial director, John Matisonn, is to leave, the newspaper said on Thursday. Matisonn joined ThisDay in September 2002 at the outset of the project to launch the paper ”as a new quality national daily”. He was a key player in the planning and execution of the newspaper which was launched in October 2003.
The Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, said on Friday that the Air Quality Bill will be resubmitted to Parliament this year and air quality officers will be appointed to crack down on offenders in pollution hot spots. Adressing the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>’s Greening the Future awards breakfast in Johannesburg on Friday, Van Schalkwyk also paid tribute to the South African public, "the foot soldiers in our greening revolution".
The new Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, is powerless to stop controversial mining in one of South Africa’s most pristine and ecologically sensitive areas. It is the Department of Minerals and Energy that has the power to grant a licence to the consortium that is currently prospecting in the Eastern Cape’s Pondoland area, says Van Schalkwyk.
Unprecedented public distrust of the Department of Health is threatening its efforts to eradicate inequalities in the public health sector. In the month since Manto Tshabalala-Msimang was reappointed to a second term as health minister, the department has had to juggle two court cases, resignations of crucial staff and glitches in the anti-retroviral (ARV) roll-out plan.
The African National Congress has denied that it bowed to pressure in withdrawing the nomination of Vincent Smith as chair of the public accounts committee (Scopa).
The ANC caused surprise this week when it put forward New National Party member Francois Beukman as the chair when it had previously indicated it might settle for Smith.