President Jacob Zuma made a very important speech to South African diplomats on 31 August 2014. Addressing the annual Heads of Mission Conference he told our ambassadors that the economy is the apex priority for the next five years.

"We must put all our efforts into promoting a positive environment for economic growth and development if we are to break the back of poverty, unemployment and inequality."

He told them that South African envoys must prepare themselves for vigorous marketing and trade promotion to enable our country to make use of all the opportunities that are created by our economic cluster and by the business community.

"We want more markets for South African goods abroad and we want more investments to flow towards South Africa. We want you to play your role in this regard," he said.

If government and our diplomats take those words to heart, we could see a South Africa that is open for business, that realises opportunities once missed are often lost forever, and understands that if we are to create jobs for our unemployed millions, we need a new mindset.  The start of 2015 is the ideal time to remind ourselves about what the president said and to decide to put his words into practice.

Too many in government are hostile to or at least vaguely uncomfortable with and about business.  Many are stuck in the outdated ideology of fifty years ago.  Some have not caught up with the exciting present where prosperity lies in going out and finding investments and new markets that we might be able to satisfy; in coming home and producing goods that can compete for price and quality with the best in the world and then selling our goods.  Government cannot provide all the jobs and should not: trade and investment can do it for us as it has done for so many other countries.

It is not only government and our diplomats who have to become hungry for trade and investment: the private sector is unbelievably passive in many areas where opportunities should be grasped. Two examples are the United States market and South East Asia.  AGOA, the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, gives South Africa tariff- free entry to the USA market for many goods.  We make use of only a fraction of that priceless advantage. 

ASEAN, the Association of South East Asian Nations, will have a Common Market this year, comprising ten countries including Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. This is a market with seven hundred million people where we have a significant adverse trade balance.

Like our politicians, our diplomats,  junior and senior, some of whom are excellent, generally suffer from the disadvantage of little or no experience in business and the professions, very little education in finance and economics and far too little understanding of what it is that encourages foreigners to invest in our country.

Our younger professionals in the Department of International Relations and Co-operation (DIRCO) must be pushed to improve their qualifications and their potential usefulness to the country when they are posted abroad.  How many know anything about economics; trade; finance; investment?  How many are studying subjects like these to equip themselves for the future?

How many are rewarded by scholarships and bonuses when they complete courses?  How many of our diplomats are taken in hand by the Department of Trade and Industry and given intensive briefing and training - real training, not a couple of lectures - so that they understand exactly what is required of diplomats who are hungry to acquire business for South Africa?

My experience of DIRCO was that there are some quite outstanding young people in the department although most of them are economically under-schooled.  What is the department doing to remedy that?  And what about the periods they spend at Head Office between postings; do they go to the next posting enriched knowledge-wise and more useful? 

Then we have the people at the embassies who are directly responsible for trade matters. These are usually senior people next in line to the ambassador. Too many of them have little or no real knowledge or experience of what it takes to do business or attract investment and their performance assessments are not always a reliable indicator of what business they do and what investment they attract.

What of the ambassadors?  Most of them are political appointees.  Some are excellent.  Some are mediocre.  And some are very poor advertisements for our country.  It is understandable that no African country could have a diplomatic corps, almost totally male, white, middle aged or older and it was the obvious thing to do to introduce new people into the department, especially at ambassadorial level.  Political appointees played, still play and will continue playing a role, but Rapport rather unkindly said a few weeks ago that if you are dishonest or useless then you can always become an ambassador. 

One hopes that in appointing new ambassadors some regard will be had to their suitability for promoting trade and investment.  There are many diplomatic posts in places where economic considerations are small and where the presence exists for larger political, historical or sentimental reasons, rather than trade, but there are some postings that cry out for expertise, insight and enthusiasm about doing business.

If President Zuma signalled a change of tone and the start of a determined campaign aimed at solving our poverty, unemployment and inequality problems, then 2015 may be a new beginning for South Africa. But it needs all ministers to subscribe; every single diplomat to be on board; business to wake up to the wonderful opportunities out there; and President Zuma to prove he means what he says.  If it all comes together, then 2015 could indeed be the start of "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs."

Douglas Gibson is a former opposition chief whip and former ambassador to Thailand, Lao PDR, Cambodia and Myanmar.

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