Traffic manager president edition outgoing demand
He says that he knows from discussions with the SA state that it intends to provide the infrastructure to enable that so vehicle makers don’t move elsewhere. Yet Schäfer cautions that even Germany’s car manufacturers in SA – like all vehicle makers – have to become climate neutral within a generation by shifting to fuel cell or electrical propulsion. He says Germany’s trade and investment in and with SA has become “decolonised”, as it doesn’t only extract primary resources but adds considerable value, for instance through hi-tech products like its cars, which are exported globally. Germany has a big stake in SA’s economic future, not least because of its large investments here, particularly its car manufacturers, which Schäfer says provide nearly 10% of all SA’s exports. Yet with its West Coast wind and sun, it could become a reliable exporter of renewable energy in half a generation. Schäfer said SA emits more carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced than any other country. Germany also agreed to provide SA with huge, direct financial and technical assistance if it embarked on a “bold and quick” energy transition away from its heavy dependence on coal-fired energy. They agreed that Germany would help SA implement the German system of vocational training where young people learn their craft in a company while getting theoretical knowledge at a college. She and Ramaphosa launched a strategic relationship. Chancellor Angela Merkel followed in February 2020. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid the first state visit in more than 20 years in November 2018. The transition from Zuma to Ramaphosa boosted Germany’s relationship with SA from “routine if not boredom” to “close to what it was in the first years after freedom under Mandela”, Schäfer said. “Since 2017, a lot to that effect has already been achieved,” he says. “It is the re-establishment and the reinvigoration of the rule of law that can and will convince investors to come in their numbers to South Africa and create jobs and employment. “They will weigh very carefully the political will and decisiveness in government and the ANC with which challenges to the rule of law and public order are dealt. Potential investors from the international community understand that very well.
“It will inevitably take time to catch up and remedy the political, economic and social damage done until 2017. He said nine years of State Capture under Zuma “came with a huge cost in terms of almost a decade of low or no growth, a slowdown of service delivery and lack of progress in social cohesion”. And so the flaring up of violence, though a huge shock, was not a complete surprise.