Mr. Aphane's interview with Commercial Times...

South Africa Solves
Electricity Crisis To Attract More Investors
The Renewable Energy
Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (IPPPP)
launched by the South African government in 2011 not only
resulted in the generation of additional 3,500MW of electricity
from renewable energy sources, but also helped boost the growth
of foreign direct investment in South Africa. Over the past five
years, the FDI in South African energy and power generation
sectors amounted to R190 billion. The current power generation
capacity of South Africa is 44,000MW and more power plants are
under construction. The overall power generation capacity is
expected to reach 70,000MW by 2018. Having solved the energy
issues with 18 months of efforts, the South African government
hopes to attract more foreign investors.
South Africa is the
biggest economy in Africa and has advanced technology,
sophisticated infrastructure and the Johannesburg Stock
Exchange, the biggest stock exchange in Africa, according to
Musawenkosi Aphane, Representative of the Liaison Office of
South Africa. The validity term of the African Growth and
Opportunity Act (AGOA) implemented by the US in 2000 has been
extended to 2025. This Act offers trade incentives for the
sub-Saharan countries to increase their exports to the US. South
Africaˇ¦s export accounts for 85% of the entire export of the
Southern Africa to the US.
The textile industry of
Taiwan has advanced technology that comes with a long history.
As far as Aphane can remember, the clothes he wore and the toys
he played with during his childhood were all made in Taiwan. ˇ§I
thought Taiwan was lying in the south of Johannesburg and I
wanted my mother to take me thereˇ¨, said Aphane. There were once
as many as 220,000 Taiwanese textile companies in South Africa.
But after 1998, the number dropped to roughly 80,000.
Aphane hoped that
Taiwanese businessmen could go back to South Africa and take
full advantage of the investment incentives offered by the South
African government. AGOA offers duty-free treatment for export
to the US. Exporters with plants based in South Africa can also
export their products to the Southern African Development
Community (SADC), the Common Market for Eastern & Southern
Africa (COMESA) and the East African Community (EAC) without
having to pay any customs duty. The total population of all the
common markets plus the US market amounts to 1 billion. Compared
with other countries in Africa, South Africa provides better
logistic services enabled by the sophisticated highway, railway
and air and sea transport networks.
South Africa boasts
advanced technological R&D power. The first successful
human-to-human heart transplant was performed in South Africa.
The unique coal to liquid fuels technology was developed by
South Africa on its own. South Africaˇ¦s first CubeSat, a type of
nano-satellite, was successfully launched in 2013. South Africa
also actively participates in the Square Kilometer Array (SKA),
an international radio telescope projects aiming to explore the
origin of the universe and to observe the interstellar systems.
A South African medical team successfully performed the first
penis transplant in the world in 2015.
As the government of
Taiwan is currently promoting the five innovative industries,
South Africa can cooperate with Taiwan in the realms of
biomedicine and auto electronics, said Aphane.
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