Programme Director, Rahul Sharma
Dr Anthony Costa, Investment Program Lead, President of South Africa’s Investment Mobilization
Program
Mr. Ashwin Lakhan, Co-head, Investment Banking, RMB
Mr. Craig Beney, Helical Capital Partners
Mahesh Kumar – Consul General of India, Johannesburg
Ladies & Gentleman,
First of all, let me congratulate CG and others who have been involved in establishment of this investor network. Both countries – India and South Africa – are looking for investments and there are areas in which there can be investment in both countries and a network of this kind will help in identifying such areas.
As a representative of India, let me first outline the policy framework expounded by the Government of India to invite investment in the country. Here I will speak of three policies that have had resonance in the recent past:
1. Make in India – This is a policy to increase the share of manufacturing in the country, which the government has been pursuing for a while and has opened different sectors upto 100% foreign investment.
2. The second policy that the government undertook was of Atmanirbhar Bharat. This was done during the COVID period when there was interruption in supply chains and the government put forth the idea of being self-reliant in certain critical areas. This does not mean that India wanted to quit the supply chain - but wanted to make economy like India is not stranded because of disruptions. For example, our car production suffered because chips were not coming from the manufacturers in other countries.
3. Linked to this, is the third policy initiative – called the PLI or Production Linked Incentive – under which government is providing incentive for establishing industries in areas which are critical – as I just mentioned – one of the areas is semiconductors. There are several other areas - such as – electric vehicles, renewable energy, medical equipment, etc.
After Covid – international situation has also changed – countries want to ensure that they are not dependent on one country for their supplies and India is one of the countries that is being considered by many investors.
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From South Africa – we have seen investment – Nasper has investment as per their website around USD 8 billion in Indian technology companies and Start-ups – PayU, Swiggy, etc. - Sanlam has invested in Shriram Finance – 10% stake in the finance – 40% in life insurance and 42% in general insurance. Nando’s restaurant has recently tied up increase the number of stores from 11 country to 150 countries by 2035. These are areas which are known to us. But there is a lot of scope in other areas as well.
Some areas which can be of interest to South Africa are defence, mining equipment, banking to name a few.
From the Indian side, we also have companies in diverse sectors investing in South Africa – Mining, IT, Steel, Pharmaceuticals, automobiles, name a few – but there is scope for bilateral cooperation in many other areas – such as healthcare, railways – semi-high speed rail, ports, renewable energy, etc. The area which will be very interesting – Anthony Costa is sitting here – is the mode of procurement of pharmaceuticals by our government – we can help in setting up this for you – so that medicines are available at a cheap rate to implement your National Health Insurance.
Recent investments from India include Varun Beverages – which has bought the franchise of bottling of Pepsi and other products in South Africa. Another company has invested in a chrome mine recently. Personally, I will like Haldiram to open a restaurant chain here and if Nando’s is there – why not another international chain from South Africa such as Ocean Basket.
So, there is a good scope of investment from both sides. These investment interactions will help in identification of opportunities. Therefore, I congratulate the organizers and CG Johannesburg for putting together today’s interaction.
Thank you.
