Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 26, 1994 TAG: 9404260130
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
As political tensions rose to a crescendo of car bombings on the eve of South Africa's first multi-race elections, dozens of southern Africa leaders and bureaucrats gathered quietly at Virginia Tech on Monday to sell their countries as a stable investment environment.
Representatives from South Africa and the 10 nations of the Southern African Development Community spun this weekend's violence in South Africa as a tense beginning to a regional emergence they have worked toward for decades.
"There will be violence leading to the elections," said Kairi Mbuende, executive secretary of the Southern African Development Community. "But my reading of the situation is that what we are going through is sporadic violence, rather than well-orchestrated violence with a clear political agenda."
The 10 nations joined in 1980, and two years ago established a "community" similar to the 12-member European Union. The agenda of the development community's delegation in Blacksburg is clear: to change the image of their region from one of volatility to one of an up-and-coming economy.
Skeptical companies that wait for the dust of southern Africa's historic struggles to settle will pay the price in lost business when they finally try to enter the market, Mbuende said.
"While you wait for a few years, you'll miss a train," he said. "For instance, in Namibia, some of the companies moved very fast, and when everybody else was coming to knock on the doors, they were closed."
Ned Lester, director of business and community relations at Tech, said the conference's organizers intentionally picked the week of South Africa's elections for this year's gathering, the fourth year Virginia Tech has held the Global Market Opportunities Conference.
"We said, 'Hey, since there's going to be a lot of tension, why not have the conference at that time?'" Lester said. "We looked at it both ways, but we thought this might be a forum for our government to use to talk about some policies in South Africa."
Lester said last year's conference with Chinese companies and trade representatives resulted in more than a dozen joint ventures between U.S. and Chinese companies.
Tembayena Dlamini, with Swaziland's ministry of commerce and industry, said her country could use the expertise of American agribusiness to process its plentiful crops - sugar cane, cotton, tobacco, timber, tomatoes, peaches.
"The factory we have is an old factory, and it's specialized in pineapples and citrus," Dlamini said.
Walter Chidakwa, executive officer of the Zimbabwe Investment Center, put southern Africa's current situation into historic context. Most of the countries gained independence in the 1960s, then turned into highly centralized bureaucracies whose own policies stifled investment.
Now, Zimbabwe is trying to sell itself as a secure place for foreign businesses. Chidakwa said the country guarantees to protect its investors from payment fraud and offers tax incentives for companies to set up in rural areas.
Mbuende likewise said there shouldn't be any long-lasting political upheavals for companies setting up operations in southern Africa.
"The time for military takeover is over," Mbuende said. "There is only one way to take over a country in southern Africa now, and that is the ballot box."
by CNB