Nicola Jenvey

A COMPETITIVE South African economy was critical to the success of the continent, an international corporate development specialist said last week.

Hischam El-Agamy, corporate development director at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and a South African International Marketing Council board member, said SA’s global competitiveness would determine its potential growth levels.

One of the international delegates due to speak at the Sapoa convention being held at Sun City next week, El-Agamy will address delegates on "SA in the sphere of world competitiveness".

Previewing his presentation, El-Agamy said an IMD world competitiveness index ranked SA 47th among the 60 strongest economies. SA is the only African country included in the index.

The index was based on 323 criteria in four categories: economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure.

The country scored well in some of the factors, but achieved low scores on a range of others.

SA ranked 27th in business efficiency and seventh in social responsibility. Its banking services ranked 16th, its corporate governance 14th and its public finance management 10th.

However, it came last on skilled labour levels and unemployment, and came in at 55th in the education rankings and 40th in the roads infrastructure rankings.

El-Agamy said one of the biggest challenges facing the country was the 31,2% unemployment rate compared with the 10% average of the survey. The country also rated poorly on real gross domestic product growth per capita and as well as on direct foreign investment.

On the upside, SA had the lowest cost of industrial electricity, the second-highest rate of employment of women in the labour force and the seventh-lowest cost of living in large cities.

"To improve SA’s standing in the eyes of world investors, efforts will have to be made by government to facilitate foreign investment and create a competitive environment," El-Agamy said.

"The country will have to develop strategies which will allow it to be ahead of the growth curve," he said.

This meant as SA overcame its inequalities in income and access to social and health services, labour market challenges and environmental burdens, the other developing nations, particularly in Africa, could look to SA as a role model.