BRICS Business Council Profile

The South African BRICS Business Council – celebrating 10 years!

Highlights

During the past decade, the South African BRICS Business Council (SABBC), has largely focused on knowledge sharing and the structuring and development of processes. This was to achieve the present effective functioning of the current nine Working Groups within the BRICS alliance. These highlights have emerged from work conducted under the three tenets that are fundamental to the BRICS Business Council’s mandate, namely government-business partnerships; trade and investment promotion and learning, knowledge sharing and advocacy. First, our government-business partnerships include the following successes:

• The development and implementation of a Portfolio of Flagship Projects which required significant Government support and participation;

• Participation in Government-driven initiatives to ensure alignment with business needs;

• Public participation through Working Groups has fostered common channels of communication and understanding of the various BRICS countries investment priorities for South Africans and vice versa;

• The formation of the National Development Bank with local regional centres in South Africa and Brazil;
• Heightened visibility of infrastructure projects pipeline; and
• The garnering of business alignment and support for SABBC initiatives. Secondly, our trade and investment promotion highlights include the following:
• Increased and targeted trade missions;
• Incremental gains in trade opportunities for sectors such as agriculture;
• Greater visibility of investment pipeline and project promotion;
• Building intra-BRICS sector networks; and
• Creating an access point to Government to unblock challenges, which was particularly important following the COVID-19 related supply chain lockdowns.

Thirdly, our learning, knowledge sharing, and advocacy drive promoted understanding of how other BRICS countries approached common development challenges confronting business, and the development of recommendations. In addition to the successes in the above three tenets, the SABBC also prides itself on being the only BRICS Business Council Chapter to have 40% female representation at Council level. In 2019, the SABBC ushered in new leadership that, for the first time, consisted of both male and female business leaders. The South African Chapter of the BRICS Business Council demonstrates the commitment of all South Africans to ensure that women are at the table for all economic discussions. This is a necessary condition to improving the performance of our economy by including all segments of our population.

Geopolitical environment
The SABBC has tried to mitigate the current global political and socio economic challenges through consistent engagement with the business community and our partners across the BRICS alliance. We have agreed that the prevailing global environment and discourse require us to be mindful of our environment, to support humanitarian efforts where required whilst diligently executing our mandate to foster opportunities for economic growth for our economies, as well as the Africa continent, as this will help alleviate prevailing social and economic challenges. We also consult with the Government periodically, to understand the country’s position. Whilst this global climate does not inspire optimism, it does reinforce the need for the BRICS business community to forge mutually beneficial partnerships that will help us to navigate the challenges posed by the current world conditions on our collective emerging economies.

The way forward and South Africa’s Chairship

Trade and investment promotion

The SABBC’s posture on South Africa’s 2023 Chairship is anchored on the second.