Rob “what crisis” Davies brushing off concerns about SA corporate divestment

By Alec Hogg It was all Oscar Pistorius yesterday. Even my autocue operator made an uncharacteristic slip, distracted by the OP channel in the control room. Biznews.com’s top stories listed as always at the bottom of this mail, reflect that reality. Fortunately, all of my CNBC Africa interviews are recorded. Then transcribed and published on … Read more

What crisis? Rob Davies shrugs off SA corporate flight, says foreigners investing

Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies is charged with growing the industrial base of South Africa. I have been keen to catch up with him, specifically to hear his plan to combat the growing number of SA corporates who are taking their investments away from home. His response in today’s interview was illuminating. Davies said … Read more

SA to put pressure on ArcelorMittal, Sasol to lower prices

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – South Africa will put pressure on steel producer ArcelorMittal SA and petrochemicals firm Sasol to reduce prices and help cut input costs in the steel, platinum and polymer industries by up to 15 percent, a government minister said. The government in Africa’s second largest economy is pushing to revitalise industrial capacity by encouraging companies to add value to … Read more

Try a little honey, Rob Davies. Works better than buckets of anti-business bile.

I try to wear the world like a loose cloak. That’s the only way to make sense of it. But the garments have been tightening. Because it’s my job to track and analyse these things, every day there’s more evidence of how the unintended consequences of poor political decisions are bleeding the country. Like today, … Read more

Talk is cheap – it will take courage to get SA’s manufacturing normalised

By Alec Hogg Capital is cowardly and its custodians usually act discreetly. Not so Invicta’s CEO Arnold Goldstone whose insights yesterday on a continued slide in SA’s manufacturing were matched by his forthright opinions. In a nutshell, Goldstone says Invicta has extremely low union representation at its business units. That hasn’t made a jot of … Read more

SA put in its BRICS pecking order place in Fortaleza

For South Africans, most of the excitement ended even before the BRICS Summit in Fortaleza began earlier this week. After the previous summit in Durban, hopes were high that the $100bn BRICS Development Bank would be headquartered in Johannesburg. The South Africans had done most of the work on putting the structure together, and as … Read more