JOHANNESBURG — South Africa and other African countries will benefit from sustainable inclusive development, said BRICS Business Council South African Chapter Chairperson Busi Mabuza.
Mabuza said the BRICS Business Forum, which closed on Oct. 28, discussed lessons from participants’ experiences towards a common vision for sustainable inclusive development.
“We have agreed on the importance of a shared and common vision for sustainable inclusive development. The meeting took place at a time of great economic uncertainty that is aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the chairperson said.
“However, we are encouraged by the promising signs of recovery emerging in our respective economies,” she said.
The BRICS Business Council has called for closer cooperation between government, business and civil society to ensure no one is left behind in the post-pandemic economic recovery. Mabuza believes that not only South Africa but also Africa as a whole will benefit from the great initiatives from BRICS and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
“Throughout the ten sessions over the last ten days, the South African delegation gave emphasis to the benefits that will flow from the AfCFTA which offers a market of more than 1.3 billion people with the majority of the population under the age of 25,” Mabuza said.
This, she added, offers an emergent young middle class that promises a dynamic environment for entrepreneurship, especially in the digital economy.
BRICS is an acronym for five major emerging countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which together represent about 42 percent of the global population, 23 percent of global GDP, 30 percent of world territory and 18 percent of global trade.
