Johannesburg: Two-and-a-half months after the BRICS summit in Durban - the first of the bloc’s meetings to be held on African soil - Wits Business School hosted a post-summit seminar on Sunday, 9 June. The seminar served as a forum where high-level speakers from business, government, labour and the academic sphere could reflect on the outcome of the BRICS summit. After the keynote address by Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies, speakers engaged in vibrant discussions with audience members on issues ranging from the mooted BRICS development bank to how South Africa can leverage its strategic position within the bloc. Regional integration, the relationship between government and business and the importance of reviving industrialisation emerged as some key themes and concerns.

 

Wits University Vice Chancellor Adam Habib opened the seminar, saying that South Africa’s membership within BRICS constitutes a moment of incredible possibility. “The time has come when the developed world is no longer in a position to impose its hegemony on the global south and South Africa has access to great opportunities and inclusive development”, said Habib. “Partnership is the modus operandi of this, and forums like this are crucial in that regard,” he added.

Since its acceptance into BRICS in 2010, South Africa has aspired to represent not only the country, but the entire SADC region – and even the continent as a whole – in the body. Minister in the Presidency for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Obed Bapela, said that South Africa will always be a “junior partner” in BRICS unless it can do so. In his speech, Minister Davies agreed, saying that South Africa is of strategic importance in the BRICS bloc and that regional integration is key to this.

 

Minister Davies said the locus of world power is shifting to emerging economies and BRICS is the most significant grouping of developing countries in the world. South Africa came into BRICS at a highly opportune time, when alignment with future global powers advances the country’s own economic agenda, especially increasing industrialisation.

The Minister said that bilateral trade with Brazil, Russian, India and China is growing; fortunately so, as trade with traditional partners like the EU is declining. However, the Minister identified some challenges with this, such as the “unsustainable” trade deficits that subsist between South Africa and its partners – most notably China, to which South Africa exports raw materials and from which South Africa imports manufactured goods.

 

Minister Davies also said that South Africa’s biggest challenge is the mistrust between government and industry. This is compared to the other BRIC countries, whose business leaders and policy makers have relative consensus on important issues.

 

Wits Business School’s Professor Kalu Ojah, a panellist in the discussion, said the mooted BRICS development bank was the most concrete intervention of the bloc so far. He said he is sanguine that the bank will be used for development projects and that as a multilateral lender it could bring a level of transparency to Africa – but the onus is on African leaders to negotiate terms and conditions for the benefit of their countries. Professor Ojah addressed fears that China will use the bank to further its own agenda, saying it may contribute most of the funds, but may not control where the funds go.

Fellow panellist Dr Martyn Davies, CEO of Frontier Advisory, also addressed the issue of Chinese neocolonialism. Davis said “the c-word gets thrown around a lot” in discussions on China’s activity in Africa, which has been crucial to the continent’s prospects. He said: “The Chinese have no intention to colonise Africa...There will never be another China. We need to ask ourselves, have we benefited from it as much as we can?”

 

Chinese support has been crucial to South Africa’s dominance in Africa, said Dr Davies, citing partnerships like those between Standard Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

On regional integration, Dr Davis said he is worried for smaller countries in Africa, because for BRICS, “big means beautiful”. If South Africa and the SADC countries (and even beyond) do not align with BRICS as a region, small states like Malawi will not reap the rewards of development.

But South Africa is in a good position in the bloc: “If you strip the geopolitical speak, our greatest competitors are also the BRICS. And Africa is ours in terms of economic dominance,” he added.

 

Starting the second session of the seminar, Cosatu President Sdumo Dlamini said that labour had been excluded from the March BRICS summit. However, the trade union federation met in Durban in talks alongside the main event and discussed trade union solidarity with labour representatives from the BRIC nations. He told the seminar: “To us, the significant and concrete meaning of BRICS should be that it is an alternative model of inclusive development with the effective and full participation of the working class. Only this way will BRICS be different from existing institutions.”

 

He added that Cosatu cautiously welcomes the BRICS bank, but said it must represent the interests and encourage the participation of the working class.

Habib said that no agenda is driven by the market alone. If successful, it has to be driven in coordination with the state. Better partnerships between government and business will help South Africa to leverage its strategic position within BRICS, enabling the continent as a whole to benefit from the opportunities offered by alignment with the world’s most powerful emerging economies.

Panellist and Chief Economist of Econometrix Dr Azar Jammine said that BRICS is a “strange conglomeration” of countries with many differences in terms of economy and ideology. But, he added: “South Africa has to participate in BRICS because it offers such opportunity. The potential for industrialisation is one.”

 

He said to cheers from the audience that industrialisation and a solid footing in BRICS will not be achieved unless South Africa – and Africa as a whole – develops its human capital resources.

 

Dr Siphamandla Zondi, director of think tank Institute for Global Dialogue, spoke from his experiences of debating with academics on the sidelines of the BRICS conference. He said that there is great expectation from African countries that they will be included in BRICS-led development – and great apprehension that South Africa plans to push its own agenda. He also echoed worries that policy makers and business within South Africa are aligned.

 

Moving forward, Zondi said academics and researchers made recommendations for interventions in which South Africa can participate: preferential trade agreements among BRICS countries, the creation of a BRICS rating agency, a BRICS-wide university built on the basis of research cooperation, and that BRICS should dialogue with the African Union, so that the two bodies can operate in harmony.

 

Said Zondi: “There cannot be support for the African agenda without support for the African regional institutions. That should be the basis on which the African agenda is actually pursued.”