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President Ramaphosa speaking at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2025

21 Jan 2025

WEF 2025: Has SA Inc. made an impression this time around?

The Money Show's Stephen Grootes speaks to Cumesh Moodliar, Investec SA CEO, about whether South Africa has made a meaningful impression at World Economic Forum 2025.

 

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'South Africa flying its flag at WEF 2025' - Investec CEO after hearing Ramaphosa's address. The Money Show talks to Investec SA CEO Cumesh Moodliar after President Cyril Ramaphosa delivers a special address at the World Economic Forum.

President Cyril Ramaphosa delivers address at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos
President Ramaphosa calls for global cooperation

"Acting together, we should build an inclusive, just and equal world in which all may prosper, leaving no-one and no country behind."

Podcast transcript: scroll to the areas that interest you

  • SG: Stephen Grootes, host of 702's The Money Show
  • CM: Cumesh Moodliar, CEO of Investec SA
  • 00:00: Intro

    Well, if the World Economic Forum meetings are supposed to be the meeting place of international business and financial ministers and central bank governors, Davos is supposed to be the ultimate symbol of an international world and international trade, you can probably imagine how cold those snowy streets are feeling today.

    Donald Trump is back in the White House, and it would seem threatening tariffs left, right, and centre. Of course, we have several business leaders there and a big government delegation, along with President Cyril Ramaphosa. Well, one of the people there representing South African business is the CEO of Investec SA, Cumesh Moodliar.

  • 00:37: Has South Africa been Trumped?

    SG: Cumesh, good evening to you and thank you for taking the time. I know it's very busy there. I suppose in a kinder world, given the changes we've seen in South Africa and our coalition government, we could have been one of the big stories of Davos, but I imagine Trump is overshadowing everything?

    CM: Even still Stephen, funny enough, I think South Africa is still holding a really strong role here today. In fact, we've just come out of a talk by the president addressing the World Economic Forum, hosted by the president of the World Economic Forum, Professor Klaus Schwab.

    So I think, notwithstanding all of that, the South African story is still flying and strong in many ways. And really, I think what the president did today in addressing the broad forum was really positioning and linking the World Economic Forum to SA chairing and hosting the G20 in 2025.

    And drawing that important link about business, civil society and government working together for the greater good, and not just from a South African perspective, but more from a global perspective.

    But you're absolutely right, obviously following the inauguration yesterday, the rapid fire presidential edicts that were issued in the White House last night, that certainly has dominated some of the discussion, but what I'm proud to say is that South Africa is flying its flag. 

  • 02:03: What lessons can SA teach the world when it comes to coalition politics?

    SG: I mean, in some ways we've kind of gone against much of what's happened in the rest of the world. There's political division in many places. We have a coalition government. 

    CM: Very much so, and I think our President very articulately put that position forward, that it took us a month to pull together a GNU when in many more mature democracies, it's taken over a year to do so.

    So I think from that perspective, we have a compelling narrative, from a political perspective. And then also I think from an economic and growth perspective, the opportunities that potentially South Africa and the rest of the continent can offer the rest of the world an insight into what could be in some respects, but also a real investment destination for us. 

  • 02:53: South Africa needs take our investment narrative to the next level

    SG: Trying to make an impact in a place like Davos when so much global capital is gathered, you say clearly we are having an impact, but is it quite difficult to attract some of that capital here to sort of just get above all of the noise?

    I mean, I suppose there's quite a lot of historical interest in South Africa, and maybe even some curiosity about how we've done things so differently to everyone else?

    CM: Very much so. So I think the global conversation – and this is where I think we really have to as an African broad civil coalition and society and business – we really need to realise that we have to lift the level of our current debate in so many ways. In a world that's becoming a lot more potentially isolationist, higher levels of protectionism and rising nationalism, the South African narrative has to be very compelling to win global capital. 

    It really has to be a narrative around that we can really offer a good return, on a number of levels: one an economic level and on a social impact level, as well as an environmental impact level. So I think all three of those threads have to come together, and that is again some of what the president articulated.

    But I think if I had to speak to a broad South African audience, the key message has to be that our debate has to get to another level. We're competing in a world where capital moves very quickly, capital is an extremely scarce resource, and some of the minor debates that we often get caught at the fringes of as South Africans is we really have to step up to the next level. 

  • 04:30: Infrastructure progress through PPPs

    SG: You're one of the companies that's been working with government, many companies working with government, but you're one of them, to deal with some of our logistics problems. We're on, I think, day 301 with no load shedding. Are you expecting more progress from that partnership to come? Some of these big problems that we're dealing with, that we've been dealing with for a little while, are you expecting some progress to come?

    CM: I really am, Stephen. I think, you know, what's been highlighted has been how successful the collaboration between government, business, broader civil society, as well as the labour and trade union movement is concerned. It almost creates a different operating model for the country, that you can see all these sectors coming together potentially for the greater good.

    If we look at the further challenges we have to tackle, you've got a water crisis that's looming, and our estimates are that we have to spend close to a hundred billion rand a year to over the next 10 years, to build the right infrastructure to make sure that we're maintaining infrastructure in the right way. That's a significant number.

    Similarly, we have to look at how the transmission and distribution network for electricity has to come into the next level of efficiency to distribute from areas that previously would not necessarily have been grid power points – in other words, points that we would have plugged in from areas like the Northern Cape.

    Historically, a lot of our grid and transmission distribution support network has been built in areas where our coal mines and coal-fired power stations are.

    But when you're talking to renewable energies, and I'm using just the example of the Northern Cape, you've got to look at how do we build that grid support network. 

    Similarly, if I turn to ports and rail, all of this has to be done over the coming period of time and we look at those initiatives and say through those three or four key threads of infrastructure, and this is key economically productive infrastructure that we're talking about, infrastructure that leads to growth that leads to, in my view, inclusive growth, if we get it right, so ensuring that we're building broader employment,  broader casting of the social net and more inclusion in the economy, which is ke, these economically productive assets do that.

    The opportunity to leverage private capital, broader development finance capital, to work on public-private partnerships in this massive infrastructure build that would be required over the next five to 10 years.

    And some of it's obviously very immediate. And we think that over the next two to three years, that number could be between 700 and 800 billion rand. 

    Cumesh, thank you very much indeed.  Large numbers there. Cumesh Moodliar is the CEO at Investec SA. Cumesh, thank you, really appreciate that. Of course, from Davos with the World Economic Forum.

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