SFC Correspondent Zheng Qingting, Yang Yulai in Tianjing, Guangzhou

This year, the G20 Summit will be held in South Africa. This is the first time the G20, established in 1999, will be hosted on the African continent, highlighting Africa's importance in the global economy. Recently, Nonkululeko Nyembezi, the B20 Co-chair, Chairman of Standard Bank Group, told Southern Finance in an exclusive interview that South Africa's presidency of the G20 is significant not only for Africa but also for the Global South as a whole. She stated that it means that we can integrate into the global governance system, gradually shifting from the past role of passively accepting decisions to becoming an active force in shaping rules and policies.

As a complementary event to the G20 mechanism, the Business 20 (B20) is a vital platform for the international business community to engage in global economic governance. Its core work is to submit policy recommendations to the G20 Summit for consideration by the leaders of G20 member countries. 

SFC Markets and Finance: South Africa’s G20 presidency — a first in African history — sends what message? Does it signal Africa’s growing role on the global stage? 

Nyembezi: Firstly, let me say it's the first in Africa, yes. But it's the third in the Global South, because we had India, and then we had Brazil and then South Africa. So it's been quite a good handover from the Global South countries. And what it does collectively for Global South, for South Africa and Africa, is to start to place us as part of the global architecture to make decisions in the world rather than to receive decisions.

If you think about the big decisions that affect the globe, whether it's climate change or it's debts and things like that. We're not now just a participant. We're part of the decision-making also. And people can see that Africa has something to offer in form of these global decision making. It's my sense that I think people here generally agree that there's a lot of change in the world. And so in the new post-US-primacy world, nobody quite knows how global governance would work, but we are positioning ourselves, especially through the G20 mechanism, as you mentioned, to be amongst those who will be making these decisions.

SFC Markets and Finance: With the AU now in the G20 and three African countries in BRICS, how do you see Africa’s rising global influence? How can it translate into real economic gains? 

Nyembezi: I think there's a lot of challenges that the world faces, but those challenges manifest differently for different countries. So by having three African entities within the structure, it means that we can now far more, I guess, impactfully put Africa's case across. So if—let me just think of a practical example—let us assume in a climate change scenario, for example, let us assume in a climate change scenario, for example, the Global North was more worried about wind or hurricanes and fires. We can put floods and we can put heat, because that's how it works to us and how it affects community.

So I think having all of those countries and African Union that you replace, we can give an African flavor to everything that needs to be discussed. I, for example, think that the African Continental Free Trade Area is a very important thing for the African continent to get, right? But it can be something that we put for the whole world to assist and to cooperate. So what all that does, essentially, I think in the final analysis, is to place an African slant forcefully forward to the global community. 

SFC Markets and Finance: With growing calls for intra-African trade and integration, how will the B20—during its presidency—work with AfCFTA and regional value chains to boost broader economic synergy? 

Nyembezi: The B20 is a strong advocate for the AfCFTA, a free continental trade area. And what is really the thrust of our work is we want to be sure that nobody is left behind. So there is, in some of the task forces, a huge push to involve the SMEs, for instance, because Africa as a continent has more small and medium-sized companies than it's got large multinationals. To bring SMEs into the trading patterns within the African continent, we think will be a very important view to get the entire regional field. There's work being done on that. There's work being done on harmonization, so that you don't have this border-to-border issue. If you fill out a set of papers, for example, you want to register your medicine, you do it once, and it is applicable across the markets of Africa that have signed up to the free trade area. That is one part of it.

So there's a set of recommendations to implement the AfCFTA. And what is true is that I don't think you could walk around there in the African continent today and find anybody who doesn't agree that there should be a free trade area within the continent. Instead of having 53 distinct markets, you have a market of 1.5 billion people. The point is how to do that without destroying jobs in countries, without making some countries winners and others losers, make sure that it's a win–win.

In fact, to borrow a Chinese phrase, it's a shared prosperity. So B20 has done quite a lot of work. As I say, I give you two examples of the kinds of things that are going to be put forward to the heads of state to implement. We also must not forget women. And they are very often heads of micro-enterprises. And we want to make sure that this agenda lends as well to how we move forward on the free trade area.

SFC Markets and Finance: With China-Africa ties rising, how do you see this driving Africa’s industrialization and inclusive growth?

Nyembezi: A lot of what is happening between China and different African markets is exactly what I've just been underlining now. So we're moving beyond just selling cobalt and selling copper to China to saying, well, in the battery-making process, could we use Chinese technology? For example, to make some of the processing happen close to the source?

It's not there yet. It was still, it's in discussion point, but China has a key foothold position to assist Africa in this regard. And we have not seen any reluctance on China's part to get involved in these kinds of conversations. China has been a very big friend and a big partner of continent. Clearly, we trade with everybody between Europe, US, China, but with China in particular, China has been very active in infrastructure, and that will continue.

If they are doing infrastructure, the premise, there are a lot of jobs that get created in terms of process, but just think about South Africa. And we are suddenly seeing a lot more electric vehicles from here that are now been sold in the market. And in fact, China is gaining market share. The next phase will be maybe BYD, when you assemble some of these in-country. It's maybe not very efficient for BYD for the time being, but that's a natural evolution to say, we would like some of the technology to be in-sourced into the country. South Africa already has a very active automotive sector and still the combustion — the whole combustion engines. 

So there's a way you construct the relationship so that there is now a collaboration on EVs. There's so much that can be done between China and Africa in different areas. And I think it dovetails very well with where the Chinese economy is today. Not only are you focusing on quality, but also focusing on high-tech. So it would be a very good partner for Africa.

Chief Producer: Zhao Haijian

Supervising Producer: Shi Shi

Editor: Li Yinong

Reporter: Zheng Qingting, Intern Fan Shuqing, Yang Yulai 

Videographer: Zheng Qingting

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