Programme director
Chairperson of Regional Tourism Organisation of South Africa (RETOSA)
Executive Director of RETOSA
Representative of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) secretariat
Representatives of the African countries that are participation in the Festival of Africa
Representative of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) secretariat
Business representatives
Media representatives
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It is my honour to address you today at this 2010 Investor Conference, whose theme is "Doing Business in Southern Africa". Southern Africa is a region thriving with huge investment opportunities.
It is not a coincidence that this conference takes place during the 2010 FIFA World Cup but rather a golden opportunity for potential investors to be exposed to the opportunities that exist in our region. This Investor Conference mainly focuses on infrastructure development, trade and investment opportunities in the SADC region.
As we all know, there cannot be any investment if there is no reliable infrastructure. Therefore governments have a responsibility to ensure that they invest in infrastructural development while the private sector should identify and take advantage of the investment opportunities.
In South Africa, tourism is government led, private sector driven, labour conscious and community based. All these four stakeholders have a significant role to play in the growth, development and sustainability of the tourism industry. Specifically, the private sector, as drivers of the industry have a responsibility to explore and take advantage of the many investment and trade opportunities that exists in the region.
Even in the SADC, we have the same understanding and conception of tourism hence we have gathered here today to discuss investment opportunities so that we can all contribute to fighting underdevelopment, poverty and joblessness.
Through the public private partnership and investment in the transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs), the SADC region has an opportunity to attract investors and develop into a respectable investment region or hub. To date we have 48 investment opportunities in the TFCAs. They range from small and medium type lodges to luxury five star lodges.
Programme director, this conference is taking place during the Festival of Africa, which is currently underway here at Melrose Arch, having started on 11 June and ending on 11 July 2010.The main objective of the Festival is to showcase African tourism, cultural and business opportunities.
It brings Africa to Johannesburg, namely the people, the dress, the music, the dance, the food, the history and the enterprise through video presentations, displays and live entertainment.
Twelve African countries are participating in the festival namely; Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to briefly inform you about our efforts in South Africa regarding investment opportunities. The national Department of Tourism has made its contribution in order to attract investors, so that South Africa can be globally competitive.
In its effort, the department in partnership with provinces identified investment opportunities which looked at poverty nodes with a potential for growth and development.
These opportunities which are contained in our investment publication include amongst others, the Timeshare holiday facilities, national tourist attractions and infrastructure development. All this was done in line with our national government priority focus area which is people development and creation of decent jobs through economic growth.
We want to ensure that tourism is rooted at local government level to promote ownership by communities and local leaders. Our deputy director-general will elaborate more on these projects in her presentation.
In conclusion, South Africa, as host to this conference, is delighted to welcome you all into our beautiful country. I am deeply encouraged to see such a diverse number of participants who want to ensure that discussions on investment opportunities are always at the forefront of our work.
As you start with you deliberations shortly, I wish you all the best and hope that you will come up with clear and measurable deliverables as far as investment is concerned.
I now declare the 2010 Investment Conference officially open.
I thank you.
Source: Department of Tourism
Address by the Deputy Minister of Tourism, Honourable Tokozile Xasa, MP, at the official opening of the 2010 Investor Conference, Melrose Arch, Johannesburg
