Welcome Address by Minister Parks Tau (MP), at the 2026 South Africa Investment Conference, Sandton JHB
SALUTATIONS
Programme Directors,
His Excellency, President Cyril Ramaphosa,
His Excellency, Deputy President Paul Mashatile,
Ministers and Deputy Ministers,
Secretary-General of the AfCFTA Secretariat, Mr Wamkele Mene,
Premiers, MECs, and Executive Mayors,
Ambassadors, High Commissioners, and Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Business Leaders and Investors from across the Globe,
Members of the Fourth Estate,
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Good morning, and welcome to the Sixth South Africa
Investment Conference.
Introduction
Our message today is clear: South Africa is open, South Africa is ready, and South Africa is an investment destination of choice.
I would like to begin this morning with a reflection on the words of President Ramaphosa: "Investments in South Africa are secure. Our business environment is stable. This is supported by policy certainty and regulatory safeguards that we have".
We gather today in a world that is, by any measure, more uncertain than it was when this conference series began back in 2018. The rules that once governed global trade are under pressure. The share of world trade governed by agreed multilateral rules has contracted. Major economies have turned inward. And South Africa, like every open, trade dependent economy on the planet, has felt those currents.
We have learned that complexity is not a reason for paralysis, but rather it is a prompt for action. When the status quo was supended in April 2025, many predicted a reckoning. The prognosis was steep. Tens of thousands of jobs in citrus, wine, and vehicle manufacturing in South Africa were said to be at risk. Economists estimated the tariff shock could shave off measurable points of growth. It was, in the parlance of the moment, a crisis.
What happened instead? South Africa did not reach Armageddon and instead, we demonstrated resilience.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
A nation that demonstrates resilience
Rather than wait for a restoration of the old order, we deepened our Butterfly Strategy —reorienting South Africa’s trade promotion toward new, high-growth markets across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. We activated the Export Support Desk to redirect affected exporters into alternative markets. We accelerated negotiations with China and Thailand on agricultural protocols. And in February this year, we signed the China- Africa Economic Partnership Agreement (CAEPA) securing a pathway to duty-free access for South African exported products into a R3.5 trillion consumer market. Full zero-tariff treatment for South African goods in China takes effect on 1 May 2026.
What is evident is that South Africa has indeed, turned a corner.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
South Africa has turned the corner
Consider the evolution of our trade partnerships over the past three years.
With Europe, we did not simply manage an existing relationship — we remade it. The EU-South Africa Clean Trade and Investment Partnership, the CTIP, signed by President Ramaphosa and European Commission President von der Leyen in November 2025, is the first partnership of its kind anywhere in the world. South Africa is the first CTIP partner of the EU because of who we are and what we represent: the largest investment partner in Sub-Saharan Africa, with bilateral trade flows of eight hundred and sixty billion rands in 2024, offering a stable, predictable and profitable market and representing the most industrialised gateway to the African continent and a lot more.
The CTIP is now in active implementation — the inaugural Business-to-Government Dialogue was convened here in Johannesburg just three weeks ago, drawing over 150 representatives from industry and government. The EU has mobilised a combined investment package of nearly two hundred and thirty billion rands for South Africa under its Global Gateway initiative, covering the just energy transition, critical raw materials, digital connectivity, and pharmaceutical value chains. This is demonstrative of the implementation of beneficiation at source, of reindustrialising the South African economy.
With Africa, the progress is structural and accelerating. South Africa is the continent’s leading exporter of manufactured goods and its largest outward investor. The AfCFTA, with 54- member countries and the potential to add more than seven trillion rands in cumulative income to the continent by 2035, is moving from aspiration to implementation on our watch. In the last 12 months, we have been to the DRC, Cameroon, Algeria, Egypt, Mozambique, Lesotho and Ethiopia to mention but a few. This work is already yielding results for South Africa’s industrial exports.
Across the Middle East, new partnerships with the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are advancing, supported by a coordinated effort between the Presidency, DIRCO, and the dtic to make inroads into high-growth markets that a decade ago barely featured in our trade portfolio.
We have even forayed into new frontiers like ASEAN and pivoted to traditional partners in Mercusor. We have thefoundation of a preferential trade agreement, the SACU–MERCOSUR PTA, covering more than a thousand tariff lines.
We see this agreement as a platform with much greater potential than has yet been realised, and we are eager to work with our Brazilian partners to expand its product coverage and increase its utilisation within the business community on both sides. The fruit of our efforts as exports into that region begin to cushion our economy from both the US tariffs and the impact of the evolving conflict in the Middle East.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Commitments that became reality
Turning the corner on trade is one dimension of our story. The other is what we have demonstrated about our capacity to turn investment commitments into operational projects and real economic activity.
When President Ramaphosa launched this Investment Conference platform in 2018, we set an ambition that many regarded as both aspirational and inspirational. Eight years on, the first five-year investment mobilisation drive exceeded its target. Over three hundred projects were initiated. One hundred and sixty-one are either completed or in active construction. More than R600 billion of those commitments have already flowed into the real economy.
But figures do not tell the story the way that projects do.
Allow me to illustrate this with some examples.
In Limpopo, President Ramaphosa opened the Platreef Mine in Mokopane — a world-class critical minerals facility employing more than two thousand workers from the local community, with a share owned by a community trust. That project originated from a R2.8 billion pledge made at this conference. The mine is now operational. The jobs are real.
The community ownership is a living fact.
In Tshwane, BMW invested R4.2 billion in the electrification of its Rosslyn plant — the only BMW manufacturing facility on the African continent. That commitment was made at thisconference. Today, Rosslyn is a functioning facility for new energy vehicle production, anchoring South Africa’s position in the global automotive transition.
At this Sixth Conference, the pipeline continues in the samevein. Every announcement that will be made today has been vetted, signed by a company executive, and backed by board approval and confirmed funding.
This conference has done something no preceding conference has. When the announcements are presented to President Ramaphosa this afternoon, it will have been as a result of convening all of society. Organised Business and labour, civil society and government at various levels. Fifteen source markets. Five continents. Nine provinces. Multiple sectors, all informed by our industrial policy, our export strategy, our macro-economic outlook and our diplomatic engagement and partnerships
That is what a credible investment conference looks like.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
This new investment cycle is the platform on which we declare our ambitions for the next phase of this work.
Where we are going is organised around three interlocking pillars: Diversification, Decarbonisation, and Digitalisation — the organising principles of our industrial policy, each backed by concrete implementation.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Addressing the Bottlenecks
We are equally clear-eyed about the constraints that still impede investment. No credible conversation about investment can proceed without acknowledging them.
Regulatory approval timelines remain a material barrier. In response, we have created a Fusion Centre precisely to track these impediments, escalate them, and resolve them in real time.
Beyond project-level facilitation, we are advancing structural remedies. The Omnibus Fast-tracking Act will enable streamlined licensing, fast-tracked visas for scarce skills, and digitised permits across multiple regulatory domains.
Legislative and policy amendments are being progressed to remove the systemic blockages that no amount of case-bycase intervention can resolve.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Conclusion
The Butterfly spreads its wings not because conditions are easy, but because we have – without the benefits of the typical stages in the genesis of a butterfly - built the capacity to leapfrog our economy to fly in turbulence. That capacity — the strategy, the partnerships, the pipeline, the institutions, and the people — is what you see gathered in this room today.
We are not asking you to take a leap of faith. We are inviting you to follow the evidence.
Come and invest with us.
Come and partner with us.
And together, let us prosper.
Dear Guests,
It is now my profound honour to invite the leader whose vision it was to initiate this conference series and who has moved it from ideation to real and impactful implementation.
Ladies and Gentlemen please help me welcome to the stage, His Excellency, President Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa.
