WeeklySA_AdminVALUE: President Cyril Ramaphosa has challenged BRICS governments and businesses to invest in manufacturing, beneficiation and technology, warning that Africa cannot remain merely a supplier of raw materials to the world…
By WSAM Reporter
NEW DELHI, INDIA — President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on BRICS governments and business leaders to use the grouping to reshape global economic patterns by directing more investment, production and value creation towards Africa and the wider Global South.
Addressing the BRICS Business Forum in New Delhi on Friday, Ramaphosa said the bloc’s ambitions should extend beyond increasing trade between member countries. Its members should build productive economic relationships capable of transforming developing economies and creating jobs.
“We cannot accept a future where Africa supplies the minerals on which the next generation of industries depends, while value addition and manufacturing take place elsewhere,” Ramaphosa said.
“If we are to change where value is created, we must also change where investment is directed. We must direct investment towards manufacturing and beneficiation, industrial technologies, energy systems, infrastructure and logistics.”
The forum brought together business leaders, ministers and heads of state to discuss trade, investment, finance, technology and development challenges shaping the BRICS economic agenda.
It also provides a platform for the BRICS Business Council to present recommendations that may be incorporated into summit declarations and follow-up programmes. These cover areas such as intra-BRICS trade, investment, the digital economy, support for micro, small and medium enterprises, standards cooperation and value-chain integration.
Ramaphosa urged companies to look beyond gaining access to new markets and instead establish production facilities, transfer skills and develop local industrial capacity.
“The question is no longer whether there is potential within BRICS, but whether we have the ambition, the instruments and the partnerships to convert this potential into economic value for our people,” he said.
The President said the Business Council should operate as more than a consultation forum. It should become a practical mechanism for developing commercial relationships and productive partnerships among member countries.
He described the current period as an economic “inflection point”, with shifting trade patterns, rapid technological advances and growing climate pressures compelling countries and companies to reconsider where they source goods, locate production and invest capital.
“For us, this is an opportunity to shape a more resilient, diversified and inclusive economic future for the Global South,” Ramaphosa said.
“For too long, developing economies have participated in global value chains mainly as suppliers of raw commodities. Value creation, technology and higher-value manufacturing remained concentrated elsewhere. We should not reproduce that pattern within the expanded BRICS.”
His remarks placed beneficiation and industrialisation at the centre of South Africa’s message to the grouping. Africa possesses many of the critical minerals required for renewable-energy technologies, electric vehicles and the industries of the future, but much of the processing and manufacturing still takes place outside the continent.
Ramaphosa said changing this pattern would require cooperation between governments and the private sector.
“Economic cooperation cannot be the responsibility of governments alone,” he said.
“Instead, we need a compact: governments create the enabling conditions for trade and investment, and business seeks out the opportunities for production and commerce.”
He added that although BRICS economies had faced profound challenges, disruption could be turned into an opportunity to build new capabilities and partnerships.
“Resilience is not simply the capacity to withstand disruption. It is the capacity to transform disruption into new capabilities and partnerships,” Ramaphosa said.
The President arrived in New Delhi on Friday to attend the 18th BRICS Summit, scheduled for September 12 and 13 under India’s chairship.
The summit takes place as the expanded bloc seeks to strengthen economic cooperation among its members and increase the influence of the Global South in international trade, finance and development.
