Alan Peat
SERIOUS ATTEMPTS are being made to develop SA-India trade with the most recent a high-power delegation from the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) having visited this country at the end of July.
Senior executives from industrial engineering, finance operations specialising in infrastructure development, and Rail India made up the party - aimed, according to Paul Runge, m.d. of Africa Project Access, at forming public/private sector partnerships in infrastructure development.
Seaports, airports, telecoms, roads, rail, electricity, everything, he told FTW.
The potential in India is enormous but we must get the contacts up, alive and running.
SA was chosen, according to Vijay Chopra, head of CII in Johannesburg, because of its strength in developing roads, rails, tunnels, electricity and so on.
India is a country with enormous infrastructure development needs. So there is great opportunity for SA companies to go to India.
Public investment will play a crucial role in infrastructure projects, he added, with the attraction for private investors being a number of tax and fiscal benefits and concessions.
In 2000-01 a total investment of US$30-billion will be required, and US$50-bn by 2005-06.
By 2012, the country estimates it will have needed more than US$736-bn in development projects for coal; oil & gas refineries; LNG terminals and pipelines; power generation, transmission and distribution; housing; urban infrastructure; roads; railways; airports and sea ports.
And SA could have a share of this, according to Runge and Chopra.
This January, Chopra told FTW, we also had a 14-member industry delegation (led by your Minister
of Transport) in India. Basically to participate in our Partnership Summit.
And part of this partnership concept, Chopra added, is in the small and medium sized (SMMEs) business sector. One of the main objectives here is to work with black empowerment companies in the SMMEs sector.
In June, we organised a show with 36 SMMEs from India, he said. This to show what we are doing for young, up-and-coming entrepreneurs in establishing small businesses.
There's a lot of knowledge to impart on a two-way basis, Chopra feels.
We first came here in 1998, he said, because we felt that there was a great need for each country to gain awareness of each other's industry.
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