Investment

Abstract

The willingness of international business to invest in South Africa under Mandela’s presidency became both the touchstone of the country’s new acceptability and the measure of its economic success. To what extent, the government wanted to know, was South Africa able to attract back the old investors from Britain, the United States and other European countries; and, perhaps even more important for the future, to what extent could it also attract investment from the rising economies of Asia. In July 1995, hopefully a sign of the new times, the Indian conglomerate UB Group which operates in 21 countries and is one of India’s ten leading companies, invested in South Africa’s tourist industry and property, and announced an interest in taking a 30 per cent stake in National Sorghum Breweries. These were hardly major investments but they were in industries on the ground as opposed to portfolio investment which can be withdrawn as fast as it can be invested. Any such investment was considered newsworthy.