Welcome all, to this historic function. It is a business gathering alongside the African union launch and we may want to think about making this somewhat of a regular occurrence. Because as Bruce (Koloane – Chief Director for Africa in the dti’s International Trade and Development Division) has indicated it is essential that governments and the private sector have a dialogue and as we’ve seen in many other parts of the world where regions have developed, part of that success has very much been the involvement of the private sector and the ability of the private sector to communicate clear and thought-out messages and I want to stress that. No government can listen to a thousand pieces of advice and make any sense of it. All governments require some considered views, which are not just representative of a particular interest at a particular moment but are representative of what the private sector as a whole needs to grow and expand. So I think the challenges for business are really exciting and very considerable but I’ll say a little bit more about that later. 

This event was organised at relatively short notice. It came from a proposal, a dialogue with a number of ministers and women business leaders had recently, so we put it together at quite short notice and for that reason I really would like to thank Coca Cola and MTN for coming to the party very, very quickly and very willingly to sponsor this event at short notice. Thanks also to my team in the dti. This is a division that deals with Africa’s development and I think for them to have put together this conference very quickly they have really done a good job. 

The purpose of this get together is really to begin a dialogue and an exchange, hopefully you will also have a chance as business people to interact with each other. But, our view is that it is crucial that business in Africa begins to talk, one to the other. Anyone who has even a passing knowledge of the African economy will know that virtually all of our economic relationships tend to be between Africa and Europe or Africa and the US or Africa and Asia. We have a relatively low level, in fact, comparatively speaking a very, very low level of interaction between ourselves. And, as we launch the African Union and as we deal with the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, this is probably the most fundamental objective – is to increase the level of economic activity and exchange between the African countries. As we all know, prosperity in Europe or North America has come very strongly out of the ability for those economies to trade with themselves. And, most of the world’s trade is in fact conducted between the developed countries themselves. So we need to build this, this relationship of uneven and unequal development has to be changed and it has to be changed by us. By us I mean governments, business leaders, community leaders, trade union leaders – basically the leaders of Africa’s people will have to take conscious and active steps to bring about the changes we need.

A little later, straight after me, Smunda Mokoena whose in the secretariat of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development will go into more detail on what this means, but let me just indicate that the partnership is not some new institution, its not a magic formula, its not a request for large amounts of aid. It is a road map a set of stepping stones that are designed to try and take our economies forward. So it follows a logical sequence. It says you have got to get the first things right first and the later things can then succeed. You’re not going to be able to do all of these things immediately. The first thing is, you can’t have development in the absence of peace and security. You will not have economic growth in the absence of good governance of an economy. You will not get trade across our borders if we don’t have infrastructure. We will not develop if we don’t develop capacity to process and beneficiate the abundant raw materials and resources of Africa. We have to use and train our people and we have to open our markets to reach others in Africa and, unfortunately to force open the markets of the developed countries to our products. So it’s a package, its not a big institution its not about large sums of money. It’s about doing the right thing at the right time and doing it together. And that requires participation from all of you. This is not something that anyone can afford to sit back and say ‘well, lets see if these governments can do it’. If we do that, we’ll fail. And I think here, I just want to say that this is not a dream. It’s not a pipe dream. 

If we look at South Africa itself, coming from what was virtually a civil war to now -- as I’ll indicate in a moment -- one of the more competitive economies in the world today. This was done by working together. Working together politically, working together (one of architects sitting here, Roelf Meyer) working politically and then forming partnerships, forming a dialogue between government, business, trade unions, community groups. Where everyone assumed some responsibility for doing something about changing. Let me give you a feel for what is possible. People may say, ah well, this is because it’s South Africa, you already had a lot of resources. That’s true but, as we’ve seen sometimes it’s very difficult to change big things. Our South African economy in 10 years has moved from a situation of stagnant growth and declining per capita income, rapidly rising unemployment, extreme levels of inefficiency in the manufacturing sector outside of our raw material sector and basically an economy that was highly protected by tariffs and not regarded by anyone as a particularly competitive economy. Ten years later, some of the benchmarks I think, are impressive. Our tariff level in manufactured products is about one or two percent higher on average than in the European Union. We have a free trade agreement with the European Union, which basically means that we don’t really fear the competition of Europe. We see it as an opportunity. Our structure of production has changed dramatically. Currently, more than half of our exports could now be considered as advanced manufactured products. The fastest growing exports come from a higher technology sector. So we’ve changed from a predominantly raw material, product exporter to quite a diversified manufacturing good exporter. Ten years ago, I think if you had asked anybody whether South Africa’s clothing and textile would survive, or whether its automobile industry would survive, or whether its electronics industry would survive, my guess is that most economists would have said no. These industries can’t compete they are going to be swamped, swallowed by the far more competitive markets of South East Asia or Europe, or the United States. In fact, what’s happened is that in all of these sectors not only have they survived but their export performance has increased dramatically. It’s interesting, in our country in South Africa every single one of the major industrial sectors – 27 of them that we measure – all of them have improved their export performance markedly. All of the would now be regarded on the world market as competitive industries. Ten years ago we would never, I think only in our dreams would we have thought that South Africa could export by 2004 200 000 fully built-up motor cars. I don’t think we would have thought that was possible. We’re doing it.

And some of the plants have just won, like BMW, a top quality award. All plants outside the US, of any maker in the world, in terms of quality performance, that is the number of defects in the vehicles were so low that they won the prize. So, we in SA sitting here often don’t see these changes because they happen in front of our eyes every moment and we think, well, are things changing. But when you stand back and have a look at it, you see that there are some dramatic changes. And what we are arguing is that its possible to achieve in Africa, by similar processes, these changes. The resource base here is gigantic. Some of the points I’m sure that will be raised later is that unlike many of the industrial economies Africa is not short of energy. It’s just that the energy is not in the right place. So getting the energy to the right place offers tremendous opportunities and as we are beginning to see these linkages can become very, very important. For us in SA the ability to link with Mozambique and buy gas and shortly with Namibia and buy gas, has a tremendously positive impact on our total economy from a mining beneficiation point of view these links are really crucial. And what it begins to show is that our economies are fundamentally linked one to the other. That we can benefit from each other’s economic performance. 

So, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that there’s cause for tremendous hope. When one takes on a task like this those who have expectations of change very quickly will be disappointed. This is something we have got to work for. Something we are going to have to all get down and work for. But, the rewards that could await us would be probably one of the fastest growing economic areas in the world. And why do I say that? I don’t say that just because it’s Africa, African Union, everything’s great. I say it because this is truly the world’s largest reservoir of resources and energy that has yet to be fully developed. And this is why the prospects are so strong. We’ve all seen that the highly industrialised, developed world inevitably, and must, have limits to its ongoing growth. So what we are looking at for the future is a new world economy. Not a world economy based on wealth and poverty, but a world economy based on mutual development. This is the great battle that we embark upon now, be it in international financial movements be it in trade negotiations, be it in the questions of partnerships like NEPAD to develop a common world economy that we all benefit from. I think it’s a very very exciting time. It’s a very difficult time but for those of us in South Africa think back to what it was like 10, 12 years ago. Very different to what it is now. Very different. So you can achieve in 10 years dramatic changes in your circumstances by determined, wise and good leadership. This is possible. It is not a pipe dream. And we must break with any moulds of pessimism and lack of courage that has beset our continent for so long. Ultimately, the real challenge for us in Africa is to liberate the forces of democracy because certainly in South Africa it is democracy that has driven our changes. It’s opened up possibilities, it opens people’s minds it allows us to talk and discuss thinks. Debate, sometimes very strongly, a whole range of issues. But the outcome of that change has been change itself. Continuous change and development that’s taking place. Let me finally say, and I think Reul Khoza will speak in this conference later on. We really as government are very excited by some of the initiatives that our business community are taking with regard to Africa. We started a dialogue here in South Africa quite an intense one, about nine to 10 months ago, and what that led to was a discussion with our business leaders as to what role could be played by business in the African partnership. And this led to a lot of dialogue, lot of discussion, arguments, debate but it ended with the proposal, or the acceptance that business could play a very important role and that gathered a lot of momentum in June in Durban when many companies, at last count over 130 companies, based in SA-- they are not all SA owned but are based in SA -- signed up on a commitment to work together in dealing or trying to make contact with other business leaders across Africa to build up a business presence in Africa. In South Africa about a week ago, we basically put together a steering group that will begin now reaching out to business leaders across Africa to try and work together and I would really commend all of the business people in Africa to start working in this direction. We need a voice. We need to strengthen business in Africa. it is a very important part of the driving force towards economic growth and development of this great, great continent of ours.