Last week BHP made a bid for Anglo American minus the SA assets, confirming the widely held perception that SA mining is uninvestible due to bureaucratic ineptitude in the issuing of mining licences, onerous BEE requirements and the disasters at Eskom and logistics provider Transnet.
It turns out that mining accounted for nearly a quarter of the country’s inward investment stock, worth nearly R3 trillion in 2022. “This may come as a surprise to some considering the country’s economic challenges and obstacles faced by private business. Many would expect that outflows would overshadow inflows. However, data from the South African Reserve Bank shows that the country’s net FDI flows averaged R58 billion per annum after the global financial crisis when excluding 2021.
“The financial services sector in SA is sophisticated and well developed and has shown relatively strong growth in recent years, which would make it attractive for foreign investors,” says Viljoen.