About $14.7bn (R194.36bn). This is how much the Chinese government has promised to invest in South Africa, an injection that would go a long way towards President Cyril Ramaphosa’s aim to raise $100bn in investment over the next five years.
State-owned China Development Bank has also agreed to lend $2.5bn (R33bn) to our troubled power utility Eskom to complete the Kusile coal-powered power station in Mpumalanga.
During his state visit ahead of the Brics summit this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that his country would take active measures to boost imports from SA to support our country’s development agenda and priorities.
Such measures include boosting SA imports by sending more buying missions to our country to focus on purchasing value-added goods.
Meantime here in Nelson Mandela Bay, the first vehicle assembled in Africa by Chinese company BAIC was rolled off the production line amid much fanfare at its Coega plant on Tuesday.
The line is a product of an R11bn joint venture between BAIC and the Industrial Development Corporation to assemble vehicles for the African market.Authorities say apart from the construction work, a further 2,720 jobs will be created when the plant is fully operational.
It is envisaged that 60% of the components for the vehicles would in time be procured locally.
Indeed these investments are welcome. However, we must be mindful that there is nothing charitable about trade.
Our government must appreciate that the Chinese, like any of our trade partners, are looking to substantially benefit from doing business with us, but at what cost?
The true value of these deals would be how they ultimately benefit ordinary South Africans and our economy.
Failure to achieve that will be too great a cost to our nation.