The Board of Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) welcomes the National Treasury’s policy paper: “Towards an Economic Strategy of South Africa”, released by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni and endorses its evidence-based, action-oriented approach.

BLSA is encouraged by the clear direction given by Minister Mboweni. It has been a long time since the government came out with such coherence and authority on economic policy and this bodes well for the country. This policy crystalizes the way forward for the country and gives a clear way forward in terms of structural reforms needed to achieve the high levels of economic growth we need as a country.

This Board believes this is the catalytic instrument South Africa desperately needs to move beyond a national debate to take concrete steps to re-ignite growth urgently. It disrupts the current narrative and helps us focus on things that really matter for South Africa.

BLSA agrees with Treasury that the fundamental problem in South Africa today is low growth. Correctly identifying the causal factors and steps to be taken to address them is critical if we are to tackle unemployment and foster investor confidence. It is about what is good for the country and for that BLSA fully supports Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni in this bold quest to get the country back on the road to recovery and growth and we urge all South Africans to do the same.

South Africa is on the edge of a precipice and the problem has been the lack of clarity and decisiveness on some of these key issues articulated in this paper. The business of government is to make tough economic choices and to ensure that the decisions that it makes are going to benefit the rest of the country and this paper is a step in that direction.

The main focus of South Africa is to boost business confidence in order to unlock investment, both local and foreign, and the BLSA believes that this intervention by National Treasury seeks to move the country towards that path so that we can change our economic trajectory.