President Cyril Ramaphosa says Africa is becoming increasingly central to the future of the global economy, as rising global demand for the continent’s critical minerals, energy resources, agricultural output, and strategic partnerships creates new opportunities for growth and development.
Speaking at the fourth Session of the South Africa-Namibia Bi-National Commission in Pretoria, President Ramaphosa emphasises that African countries must ensure their natural resources are used to drive industrialisation, innovation, skills development and sustainable economic transformation.
Co-chairing the Commission with Namibian President Netumbo Nandi Ndaitwah, Ramaphosa stresses that South Africa and Namibia share a responsibility to build regional value chains that allow Africans to derive greater benefit from their countries’ mineral wealth and other natural resources.
The leaders underscore the importance of moving beyond the traditional export of raw materials towards greater beneficiation, investment and industrial development within the region.
Today’s engagement is expected to strengthen bilateral relations and deepen trade and investment opportunities.
“Africa has become central to the future of the global economy. The world increasingly looks to Africa for the critical minerals, energy resources, agricultural potential, and strategic partnership that will shape the industries of the world into the future. The question before us is therefore not whether Africa possesses these resources. The question is whether Africans will be prepared to capture the value that they create. South Africa and Namibia have both the opportunity and the responsibility to ensure that our natural endowments become engines of industrialisation, of innovation, of skills development, and of the provision of decent work.
“Our objective should be to build regional value chains that produce finished products rather than merely exporting raw materials. For far too long, Africa has exported opportunity while in itself importing prosperity. We have exported raw materials, as you and I were talking earlier in our tête-à-tête, and imported manufactured goods. We have created industries elsewhere, while unemployment has remained one of our constant and greatest challenges here at home in our two countries. That model cannot define Africa’s future. The days when our minerals leave our shores simply as rock and dust must steadily come to an end,” Ramaphosa says.
President Ramaphosa co-chairs 4th South Africa-Namibia Binational Commission:
