Seize the World Cup as an opportunity to overcome crisis, urges Business Trust
March 16, 2009
By Ethel Hazelhurst
Facing the challenges created by the global financial crisis, South Africa would have to make the most of every opportunity, Business Trust chief executive Brian Whittaker said on Friday, presenting the organisation's 2008 annual report.
"We don't want to compound external constraints with a failure of imagination on how we can work together," Whittaker said, referring to South Africans. "We will put our energies where they are most likely to be effective," he said, referring to Business Trust.
The organisation, established in 1999, was funded originally by contributions from business and later also by the government. Its mandate was to help build capacity and create employment.
In 2004, its original five-year term was extended to this year. It has now been pushed out a further two years.
Whittaker stressed the need to seize any opportunities, including that presented by the 2010 soccer World Cup next year.
He said that while people warned that too much was expected of a "three-week event", he believed there were longer-term effects, as the event introduced global travellers to the attractions of the country.
"Based on models used for other countries, there will be a peak of additional arrivals in 2010 of about 445 000. That drops down the next year, but moves up again and, by the time you get to 2015, if the model that was used in other countries applies, for instance Germany, you will have pretty well the same additional number in 2015."
Whittaker said next year's event was not just an "enormous opportunity" for "small businesses and investment, but also an opportunity to pull the country together at a time when it will be difficult to find opportunities".
Another opportunity he identified was in business process outsourcing, which "has been growing phenomenally at about 30 percent a year for the past five years. Naturally one is expecting this to decline under the current global conditions - it looks as if it may be closer to 15 percent than 30 percent.
"But (despite) the environment we are going into, this area will continue to grow; companies will continue to look for opportunities in countries where they can reduce costs and maintain services, and we are going to kick ourselves if we spend too long in capturing this opportunity."
Talking of policy overall, Whittaker said the efforts of the government and the private sector must be effectively integrated. He said the basic problem in developing the economy was not that "people are divided by deep ideological differences or vastly different philosophical approaches. It is that we cannot get done what everybody knows we need to get done. And Business Trust tries to achieve that."
The organisation's role was to "combine the resources of business and the government, in areas of common interest, to accelerate the achievement of common objectives".
Whittaker said: "There are times when business and the government are quite properly in conflict. But there are areas where there are common interests and those … are likely to grow in difficult times."
Business Trust is working with the government, focusing on four key areas: providing support for tourism enterprise, business process outsourcing, building skills and infrastructure and combating poverty.
He said development initiatives faced problems unique to South Africa, including apartheid legacies - for instance, the pre-1994 government relocated people far from urban centres in an attempt to keep black people out of the economic mainstream.
These communities are now at a geographic disadvantage, with limited access to markets.
|
|
