US-SA relations: Business seeks common ground at B20

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JIMMY MOYAHA: With the B20 gathering set to take place in Washington between the 9th and the 11th of November, we are already preparing to see how we’re going to approach that conversation.

If you remember back when the G20 gathering took place in France earlier this year, South Africa was unceremoniously uninvited on short notice by the French government. This time around the South African ambassador to the United States, Ambassador Roelf Mayer, has said that South Africa has moved past that and that we’re gearing up for the B20 gathering.

We’re going to take a closer look at this and see what we can make of these developments with the chief executive officer of Business Unity South Africa, who also served as the co-chair of the B20 presidency – specifically as the sherpa of the local business advisory council.

Khulekani Mathe joins us on the line now to see what we make of this.

Tata Mathe, lovely having you on the show. Thanks so much for taking the time. Are we prepared and ready to attend the B20 gatherings in Washington?

I can imagine – from a South African perspective – preparedness and invitation look very different, perhaps, at this stage.

KHULEKANI MATHE: So let’s firstly get clear on one thing.

It was never an issue in terms of being invited or not invited on the side of the business community.

We’ve always had a very positive relationship with the business community in the United States, which is why, when it got to the point of hosting the summit, they invited us to join the rest of the G20 business community in Washington as part of this year’s B20.

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JIMMY MOYAHA: To your point there, Tata Mathe, when we hosted the B20 the US business community was in attendance in South Africa. Where then is the disconnect? From a business perspective, it seems as though – for South African businesses and United States businesses – the business relationships are there and are stronger than ever.

I suppose the diplomatic relationships and the political relationships might not enjoy the same strength.

KHULEKANI MATHE: Perhaps to say ‘stronger than ever’ would be pushing it a bit. But we’ve always taken a business view that the two economies –South Africa and the United States – need each other.

There are very strong relations, business relations, between the two countries.

And we’ve worked on that basis and worked to solidify those relations.

And so part of our going, those who will be going to the B20 summit, will really be part of that bigger endeavour to ask how we strengthen business relations and hopefully grow business relations between the two economies.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Tata Mathe, I want to take a look at some developments that took place earlier in the year. At some point there were some concerns around whether or not South African delegates travelling to the United States would be granted their visas.

We’ve seen announcements coming out of the United States around this. We’ve seen the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also announcing some concerns around South Africa and who the United States is letting in there.

Are these concerns a factor for the B20 as we head towards this particular gathering, or at least for our delegation that we would be sending through?

KHULEKANI MATHE: The granting of a visa to any foreign national into a country is the prerogative of the government granting the visa – and that remains so with the United States. It will grant or withhold visas based on how it exercises that prerogative.

As things stand, as the business community we have not received any indication that any of the delegation that will be going to Washington will not be granted visas.

So we operate on the basis that many people, to start with, have long-term visas to the United States, and that nothing has changed in those visa rights.

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JIMMY MOYAHA: Tata Mathe, if we then look ahead to this gathering, what are we looking forward to from a South African perspective, and from a business perspective? What conversations are we looking to have and what strategic relationships are we looking to reaffirm at the B20 gathering?

KHULEKANI MATHE: I think it’s fair to say that perhaps, unlike South Africa’s B20, which was large in scale – in the lead up to the summit we had eight task forces that worked across a number of policy areas to make recommendations to the host government; in our case the South African government – the United States, even the business community in the United States, has essentially run a fairly small operation – half the number of task forces compared to South Africa.

And so they’ve run a very, very tight ship. There wasn’t much participation, definitely, in the lead up to the summit from the South African business community, and this was just as a result of how they decided to run things.

So we’re going in there perhaps in a slightly different position from many of the delegates who came to our shores around this time last year – in terms of how prepared they were.

That notwithstanding, at the end of the day we are seeing the B20 as an important platform to discuss business issues that affect all of us across the board.

And so we’re looking forward to receiving reports from our counterparts in the United States, and looking at how we take forward some of that into the next presidency – that being the UK.

That has already begun. We’ve been in touch with our counterparts in the UK because, from our point of view, this is an important gathering. We should not drop the ball. We must make sure that issues that affect business remain at the table, and they are presented when G20 leaders meet at every point.

JIMMY MOYAHA: Global conversations continue as we wrap up the year. Just because we’re coming towards the end of the year does not mean these important conversations come to an end.

We send all our best wishes with our delegations to this year’s B20 gathering. We’ll of course be providing listeners with the latest on that gathering as we draw closer to it.

For now, we’ll leave this conversation on that note. The chief executive officer of Business Unity South Africa, Khulekani Mathe, joined us on the line now to see what we make of this.

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