First-ever EU-South Africa summit opens in Bordeaux

Paris - The first-ever summit meeting between the European Union and South Africa opened Friday in the southern French city of Bordeaux.

South African President Thabo Mbeki will meet with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in his role as acting EU president, as well as the EU's foreign affairs chief, Javier Solana.

South Africa is the only African state to date to have signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with the EU. Friday's summit is the first since the establishment of the Partnership, in May 2007.

Johannesburg - The number of "Saffas" living in Britain is far lower than is commonly believed, the first full study on this group of people has showed.

King's College research fellow, Dr Robert Crawford, put the figure at 550 000, about half the amount of one million that is usually quoted.

"The figure is a gross inflation that reveals more about the attitudes of South Africans towards emigration than it does about their actual number," said Crawford, an expert in the areas of diaspora and national identity who has conducted similar studies on New Zealanders and Australians.

First study

He will be presenting his findings at Monash University in Johannesburg on Thursday.

Crawford's study is the first in-depth look at the growing number of South Africans who are calling Britain home. He drew on census data, national insurance registrations, British entry/exit data and SA emigration data amongst other sources in his research.

The report examined questions such as why expats have left South Africa and whether they would return, and found that "while most of them express an interest in returning home to SA, the number who would actually return is significantly smaller".

It seemed that even abroad South Africans struggled with unity. For Crawford the most surprising finding was how segregated South Africans were - far more than any other group living abroad.

"They are spread across [London] and tend to segregate themselves according to race, ethnicity, and religion," he told News24. "Few diasporas display such marked differences."

"Anecdotal evidence" roughly divides South Africans in London as anglophones in the south-west, Afrikaners in the east and south-east, blacks in the east, and Jews in the north.

Deciding factors

Opportunities to travel, career advancement and earning in pounds drew South Africans to the UK, particularly London.

"Push-factors" such as crime and BEE policies also played a major role.

While two-thirds to three-quarters of South Africans entered Britain on two-year working holiday visas, the trend is set to change.

The UK has introduced a number of new naturalisation, UK visa, work permit and UK working visa categories in the last few years. The work period of the two-year working visa has been reduced to one year and a new five-tier points based system is replacing the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP.

Crawford also said that the UK has signalled it will make its working holiday visa scheme only accessible to those countries that have a reciprocal working holiday visa arrangement, something South Africa doesn't have and would be reluctant to implement at the risk of losing more skilled professionals.

South African Growth to Slow to 3.2%, Bureau Says

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- South Africa's economic growth will probably slow to 3.2 percent this year as power outages damp mining production and higher interest rates curtail consumer spending, the Bureau for Economic Research said.

The economy will probably expand 3 percent in 2009, the bureau, based at the University of Stellenbosch near Cape Town, said in an e-mailed statement today. In April, the bureau forecast that the economy would grow 3.4 percent this year and 3.8 percent next year.

In 2009, ``both private consumption and fixed investment are set to be even weaker than in 2008 amid the lagged impact of the most recent interest rate hikes,'' Hugo Pienaar, an economist with the bureau, said in the statement. While ``most of the risks are on the downside, at this stage the BER does not anticipate a recession.''

Growth in Africa's largest economy slipped to 2.1 percent in the first quarter, from 5.1 percent in 2007, after state power utility Eskom Holdings Ltd. cut electricity to mines and factories as demand outstripped supply. Economic expansion has also been checked by the central bank raising interest rates six times in a year to tame inflation, which has exceeded its 6 percent target since April 2007.

Plans by the government statistics agency to adjust the product weightings in the consumer price index beginning in January 2009 should contribute toward a decline in the inflation rate, the bureau said. Inflation would average 11.4 percent this year and 8.1 percent next year, excluding the change in weighting, the agency said.

The slowdown in the economy should persuade the central bank's monetary policy committee to keep interest rates on hold when its next meeting ends Aug. 14, Pienaar said.

Eskom Full-Year Profit Plunges 86% as Coal, Diesel Costs Soar

July 17 (Bloomberg) -- Eskom Holdings Ltd., South Africa's state-owned power utility, said full-year profit plummeted 86 percent as coal prices jumped and it spent more on diesel to ease a national electricity shortage.

Net income fell to 923 million rand ($121.4 million) in the year to March 31, from 6.5 billion rand a year earlier, the Johannesburg-based company said today in its annual report. Sales rose 11 percent to 44.4 billion rand.

While Eskom's coal consumption climbed just 5.2 percent to 125.3 million tons, it purchased more of the fuel on expensive short-term contracts. The utility, which supplies more than 95 percent of South Africa's electricity, also put greater reliance on higher-cost diesel-fired plants as it ran short of generating capacity.

Japan May Build 12 Nuclear Plants in South Africa, Kyodo Says

By Finbarr Flynn

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Japan is studying building 12 atomic reactors in South Africa as part of a plan to cut greenhouse emission and offer assistance to African nations, Kyodo News reported, citing unidentified government sources.

The combined investment, including Japanese yen loans to South Africa, is expected to be up to 5 trillion yen ($46.8 billion), Kyodo reported.

The proposal needs to be decided by South Africa's government, the country's environment minister Marthinus Van Schalkwyk was quoted as saying when asked about the project at the G-8 Toyako summit in Japan, Kyodo reported.

The Japanese government intends to start a program to train local engineers to operate the plants, Kyodo said.

South African Reserves Rose at Faster Pace in June

By Nasreen Seria

July 7 (Bloomberg) -- South Africa's gold and foreign currency reserves rose at a faster pace in June than the previous month as the price of bullion climbed and the central bank bought more dollars.

Gross reserves increased 1.3 percent to $34.9 billion at the end of last month, after gaining 0.4 percent in May, the Pretoria- based Reserve Bank said on its Web site today. Net reserves gained to $33.8 billion from $33.2 billion.

The Reserve Bank is under pressure to build reserves to cover rising import requirements as the government steps up spending on roads, railways and power plants. The current account deficit, the broadest measure of trade in goods and services, reached 9 percent of gross domestic product in the first quarter, the highest in 26 years, as record oil prices and the state's infrastructure spending fueled imports.

``The gold price recovered last month, so that helped the reserves figures,'' said Fanie Joubert, an economist at Efficient Group in Pretoria. ``The Reserve Bank has been sluggish in the last few months because of the weaker rand, but it has to try to continue building reserves. Imports are going to stay strong given what oil prices are doing.''