For South Africa’s largest companies, the previous couple of years have been one battle after one other. From enduring electrical energy and water crises to Covid-19 lockdowns and world commerce tensions, the nation’s enterprise giants have struggled to exude their regular confidence. However for Busisiwe Mavuso, chief govt officer of Enterprise Management South Africa, which represents the nation’s largest companies, there’s a feeling that the nation is lastly turning a nook – simply in time to supply a compelling narrative as host nation of the G20 and its enterprise counterpart, the B20.
“Once we began with the [G20] presidency we had been very clear that we’d like to make use of this as a chance to spotlight that South Africa is a rustic on the mend – to spotlight the good work that has been executed from a structural reform perspective, to ship a message which says South Africa is a market that has lots to supply and remains to be the gateway to the African continent,” Mavuso says.
‘Enterprise dared to intervene’
South African enterprise has seized the chance to guide the agenda: CEOs of a few of the greatest corporations headed eight B20 taskforces, which provided 30 suggestions to the G20 on kickstarting financial development. Mavuso herself serves as B20 advisory council chair.
“We needed to supply that very clear narrative when it comes to who South Africa is and the work that’s being executed to enhance the buying and selling surroundings on this nation as a result of we aren’t naive to the truth that it has not been a conducive buying and selling surroundings for a while,” she says.
Enterprise lobbying and intervention has, Mavuso says, been essential in persuading authorities to lastly prioritise fixing the nation’s woeful electrical energy provide issues. She factors to the “superb” progress in energy provide; energy cuts had been the norm in 2023, occurring on a majority of days; however simply 26 hours of load-shedding had been recorded between 1 April and 28 August 2025, throughout a handful of days. The nation has skilled none since, based on energy utility Eskom. A few of that’s undoubtedly resulting from companies and households looking for provide from unbiased energy producers, however Mavuso says the federal government has additionally performed its half.
“Authorities has seen the progress the nation has made and the way a lot we’ve turned the nook exactly as a result of enterprise dared to intervene. They see the significance of the reform agenda. We’ve been screaming and shouting it for fairly a while.”
Saving Johannesburg
Having executed a “respectable job of exhibiting politicians the significance of this business-government partnership,” Mavuso now needs to use that momentum to one of many nation’s greatest challenges: fixing Johannesburg. Fundamental infrastructure and companies are crumbling in South Africa’s financial capital, which has been badly led by 11 mayors in ten years. Poverty is worsening all through the town and residents say its decline is precipitate. William Gumede, affiliate professor at Wits College’s College of Governance, not too long ago mentioned that the town is on the verge of “changing into a failed metropolis, nearly like a failed state”.
Talking from Enterprise Management’s places of work in Sandton, within the metropolis’s still-affluent north, Mavuso says pressing intervention is required from authorities and enterprise to show the town round. “We’re now having conversations with the [South African] presidency as Enterprise Management about how we may help to repair Johannesburg. Johannesburg is the financial coronary heart of this nation.
“While you take a look at Johannesburg and Cape City you’ll swear you’re in two totally different international locations. The infrastructure challenges; the upkeep that’s simply not being executed; potholes on the roads; robots [traffic lights] not working; the water safety challenges we’re going through; the filth and so forth – the enterprise neighborhood has been introduced in to attempt to help.”
Easing public-private partnerships
As a part of the intervention, Mavuso is urging the federal government to amend laws to make it simpler to fund enhancements. Earlier this yr, the federal government amended the restrictive Nationwide Treasury Regulation 16, unchanged for 15 years, to make it simpler for companies and authorities to embark on public-private partnerships (PPPs). However Mavuso says enterprise is “adamant” that they have to go additional in reforming the foundations if PPPs are to take root.
“We’re very conscious, as enterprise, that the exogenous components occurring outdoors of South Africa, are one thing we are able to do little or no about – what we are able to do is repair our personal surroundings.” That exterior surroundings stays robust. The Trump administration has imposed tariffs of 30% on South Africa, and the lapsing of the US’s African Progress and Alternative Act (AGOA) in October is predicted to be significantly damaging for textile, automotive and agricultural exporters who benefited from tariff-free entry to the US market underneath the scheme.
“The tariffs which were imposed on South Africa of 30% – they cut back our competitiveness as a rustic. I’m positive motor corporations like Mercedes Benz and BMW that selected to arrange in South Africa benefited lots from these automobiles being manufactured right here and are feeling the influence, as a result of that business was a part of AGOA. In the event that they now should pay a 30% import tariff once they export from South Africa [to the US], we fear about whether or not they wouldn’t slightly shut down factories right here and go elsewhere the place tariffs are 10%.”
Mavuso says the tariffs might worsen the nation’s employment disaster. Official unemployment was 33.2% within the second quarter of 2025, with a startling youth unemployment charge of 46.1%. “We fear in regards to the agricultural exports which can be going to the US and what that will imply for the business in South Africa. While you take a look at the South African labour market it’s nonetheless characterised by unskilled and expert labourers; industries like manufacturing, the auto business, in addition to agriculture, have a excessive propensity for absorbing these. It makes a foul downside worse.”
The continent on the doorstep
Whereas the polycrisis has been vastly damaging, South African’s main corporations have proved resilient and adaptable – not least by rising their publicity to faster-growing economies in Africa and looking for to learn from the rollout of the African Continental Free Commerce Space (AfCFTA). Engagement with the remainder of the continent is a key purpose of the B20 and G20 course of, Mavuso says.
African engagement “was our ‘true north’ going into the B20. We had been very deliberate about attempting to get as a lot as attainable from the broader African participation within the totally different workstreams, and we did have nice participation of African companies,” Mavuso says.
That willingness to have interaction extra with different African markets extends to advocating for his or her shared pursuits by the B20 and G20 boards. “It’s been encouraging to see how quite a lot of the B20 suggestions have lastly come out, and fairly just a few are literally Africa and World South centered. One, from the commerce and funding job pressure, talks about accelerating African integration and seeks to take a look at how the worldwide neighborhood helps full and quick implementation of the AfCFTA. There’s quite a lot of pleasure when it comes to getting that going. It’s a $3.4 trillion market.
“I believe that speaks to the strategic significance of the African continent going ahead. The work that has been executed by the B20 taskforces goes to provide us an excellent basis from which to start out positioning ourselves as a market of the longer term.”
