Mpumalanga premier addresses US investors
This province is ready for business, and attracting foreign domestic investment constitutes an important component of our development objectives, said the premier.
Mpumalanga’s premier, Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane, has apologised for the continued power outages caused by Eskom’s load-shedding.
Mtshweni-Tsipane made this apology on Tuesday when she addressed the Trade and Investment Roundtable session with some US business representatives.
“We wish to acknowledge the difficulties posed to business as a result of what is generally referred to as power outages or load-shedding.
This can be blamed on a combination of factors, such as delayed commissioning of new-generation capacity, underperformance of existing and newly built coal generation capacity and degradation of the existing Eskom coal fleet.”
She said government is working on finding a lasting solution to this problem.
“Nevertheless, we wish to welcome National Government’s efforts to address these challenges. For example, Government, in partnership with the private sector, has embarked on the Renewable Energy Independent Power Production Procurement Programme, which has attracted investments of close to R200b since its inception.”
She told potential investors that the province is ready for business.
“I must mention how as a province we have state-owned agencies that are strategically positioned to collaborate with potential investors to remove bureaucratic red tape and ease the burden of doing business. As Mpumalanga, we wish to welcome your participation in our economy,” she said.
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Mtshweni-Tsipane said the Mpumalanga Economic Growth Agency will ensure that qualifying investors are matched with investment incentives offered by different institutions such as National Treasury, the Department of Trade Industry and Competition, Department of Small Business Development and the various agencies of these departments.
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“Mpumalanga is a regional economic powerhouse in a country that is one of the most sophisticated, diverse and promising emerging markets globally.”
