Leveraging Africa's 4th Largest Economy to Do Business

Gauteng Province in South Africa is the 4th largest economy on the African continent after the countries of South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria, according to Mudunwazi Baloyi, General Manager of Investment, Trade, and Project Facilitation at the Gauteng Economic Development Agency. Baloyi joins AfribizTalk to discuss Gauteng as an asset which investors, entrepreneurs and businesses can leverage to do business in Africa.

Baloyi shares that Gauteng is a global city region (GCR), a unified region made up of municipalities, with a population of over 11,000,000. Other global city regions (GCR) around the world include New York, Sao Paolo, and Milan. GCRs are attractive because of their high-density consumer markets.
Gauteng has strong industries in engineering, automotive parts, and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). With investment prioritized for renewable energy, manufacturing, etc., businesses have diverse opportunities within the province.

One of the key improvements brought by the World Cup was improvement in public transportation and roads. A trip between business centers of Pretoria and Johannesburg, which used to take more than an hour due to traffic, is now clocked at about 30 minutes, according to Baloyi. Using the Gautrain rapid train will reduce the trip to about 15 minutes.

Gauteng’s reach goes beyond South Africa. It stretches around the globe through partnerships, multinational corporations, trade agreements, etc. Baloyi notes that Gauteng has the largest concentration of multinational firms in Africa and South Africa has deepened trade agreements with other emerging markets like Russia, China and India.

Listen to learn more about how Gauteng can be leveraged as a key gateway between Africa and the globe.