President Cyril Ramaphosa outlines key areas for deeper cooperation between South Africa and India
My fellow South African business people, I thank you for being here. I really thank you. You are the jewel of economy in South Africa and we want to continue applauding you. And we are meeting at a time when the global economy is undergoing a number of changes and transformations. Uh supply chains are being uh reconfigured and industrial policies are also being uh reshaped and uh influenced by a whole number of uh things like AI and climate change, energy transitions, and so forth. And digital technologies are reshaping industries and this is where India uh has really defined itself as an important player. So, for us, it's so good and important to be here because uh as we interface with you and as our business people interface with you, we are able to to learn quite a lot. Um and to thrive in this rapidly changing uh environment requires partnerships. And I see uh fellow business people from South Africa being here as people who require and want to have partnerships. And India is powering ahead in more ways than one. But South Africa is also open for business. And interest that Indian business people have shown in South Africa means that they can see a country that is open for business, a country that has enormous endowments in more ways than one. South Africa itself is transforming and uh Deputy Minister Godlimpi has spoken to that. Uh and yes, he right we are leading a transformation and a reforming agenda to reposition our country in a number of ways we have emerged from more than a decade of electricity shortages into a new era of investment and competition and we are also attending to some of those areas that were holding us back. For instance we are reviving our freight rail system our ports and some of the businesses that we met yesterday and today are so well versed in infrastructure development in ports and in many many other areas and it was really really a joy to an uplifting for us to be in the presence of such capable business people.