South African Business 2024

AN ECONOMIC OVERVIEW OF
SOUTH AFRICA
The CEOs of South Africa’s biggest companies are supporting
government in tackling the challenges that are getting in the way of
economic growth. Renewable energy solutions are taking off and big
mining projects are producing valuable product.
By John Young
As 2023 drew to a close, concerns about
the functioning of South Africa’s ports
and railways became more urgent.
Transnet, the state-run utility which
has six divisions covering ports, port terminals,
railways, engineering, pipelines and property, is
investigating partnerships with private operators,
but the immediate priority is to fix dockside cranes
and unload ships.
President Cyril Ramaphosa himself visited the
Port of Richards Bay, pictured, and promised swift
action. The inability of the state’s other big utility,
Eskom, to ensure a reliable supply of electricity has
been a concern for some time.
In response to these large national problems,
the Chief Executive Officers of 130 South African
companies have made a joint commitment to help. In
addition to logistics and energy, crime is the third area
of focus for a series of Working Groups which regularly
meet and report to the President every six weeks.
Calling itself “Business for South Africa”, the
group first came together in response to the Covid
pandemic in 2020 and helped to coordinate the
successful vaccination rollout of 2021. Spokesmen
for the grouping have said that they are responding
to national priorities in the spirit of building a
prosperous future together.
The first steps in a move by the state to partner
with the private sector in boosting efficiency at
ports were taken in 2022: deals were signed at the
Port of Durban, Richards Bay and at East London. In
2023, these first steps became a giant leap when
International Container Terminal Services Inc (ICTSI),
a Philippines-based port operator, was announced
as the preferred partner for a joint venture (JV) to
run the Durban Container Terminal with Transnet.
Part of the plan for Durban Container
Terminal Pier 2 is to increase traffic in such a
way that it will be able to increase its handling
capacity from the present 2.9-million TEUs (two-
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PHOTO: TNPA