PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has urged businesses to invest in Mzansi.
Giving his remark at the BRICS Summit in Sandton Convention Centre on Tuesday, 22 August, Ramaphosa said the country had "untapped potential" for companies wanting to establish their businesses in Mzansi.
"We therefore call on the business community to join hands with us to identify solutions to these and many other challenges affecting our respective economies from a South African perspective.
"There is massive untapped potential for investment in our country and indeed on the African continent," he said.
He said he was grateful that business leaders in attendance were in tune with the developmental agenda to lift the people living in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries and beyond out of the ravages of poverty and inequality.
Ramaphosa said Africa has rich minerals that are bound and are driving economic activity across the world.
However, Ramaphosa told the delegates that African countries have made it clear that the investors of choice are those who will come and invest in the continent but also process the resources close to source so that African countries do not export rock and sand but finished products.
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Ramaphosa called on investors not to leave women out in their financial support.
"It is important that specific financing be directed also to women-owned businesses so that they can harness the benefits of the continental free trade area," he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who gave his address virtually, lamented sanctions placed on his country.
He said they have prevented Russian from exporting most of its products, including grain and fertiliser.
"The economic situation is seriously affected by the illegitimate sanction practice and illegal freezing of assets of sovereign states, which essentially amounts to their tramping upon all the basic norms and rules of free trade and economic life," he said.
Putin said the sanction came when countries were on the road to recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
