competing for investment capital. We are therefore keenly aware of the importance an economic and social climate that will create opportunities for investors.” On the same tour president Mandela in a speech on 5 October 1994 harnessed support from the Congressional Black Caucus of the White House. “In this regard, we shall rely on the Congressional Black Caucus to help promote South Africa for its objective qualities: its natural beauty, its sophisticated infrastructure and financial system and its realistic policies to ensure economic growth and equity.” This shows Mandela also understood that this powerful group could spread its influence to a wider group of potential investors across America and further afield. In a 1993 interview with Marshall Loeb of the US Fortune magazine Mandela reinforced the call he had made on his earlier visit to America in 1991 to urge business people again to consider doing business with South Africa. Mandela was hard at work ensuring that investment would flow once he took over. “I went to the US toward the end of 1991 - to New York, Washington, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta. I invited businessmen in all these places to visit our country, to inspect investment opportunities, because I said a settlement is about to be achieved and we know that you need to do some research before investing. Now I am making that appeal again, and I do hope that by the time companies come it will not be a question of preparing for the future, but that the field will be open.” The first reward for Mandela came on the day following his historic speech asking for the lifting of sanctions in the UN in September 1993 in the form of a pledge of $850-million in economic aid from the IMF. This was announced by Michel Camdessus of the IMF after a breakfast meeting with Mandela, recounts De Villiers. But, under the great leadership of former president Mandela, how successful was the new South Africa in attracting foreign capital back to the golden shores of a black majority ruled country? It can be seen in the figures of the South African Reserve Bank. In a 1996 address, barely two years after the arrival of democracy, Dr Chris Stals, governor of the Reserve Bank, gave
a very positive evaluation of the South African economy. “Over the 18 months from July 1994 to December 1995 a net amount of more than R30-billion flowed into the country from the rest of the world. This exceeded even the most optimistic expectations at the time of the election of the Government of National Unity in April 1994.” Stals said the financial markets had generally exploded since 1992. This was due to the expectation of change, the release of Mandela and other political prisoners, and the emergence of a genuine sense of hope for a new South Africa. Based on the groundwork Mandela did in appealing to investors to help rebuild the country in the US and other nations, the figures of the Reserve Bank speak for themselves. “In 1992, the total value of shares traded on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, for example, amounted to R22billion, but then increased to R63-billion in 1995. The increase in the turnover in the bond market was even more spectacular, having risen from R496-billion in 1992 to R2 006-billion in 1995. The average price of all classes of shares listed on the Stock Exchange increased by 18.2 percent per annum from 1992 to 1995. In the market for foreign exchange, the average daily turnover in the first five months of 1996 amounted to US $6.8-billion.” In another address, this one on 3 March, 1996, on the Integration of SA in the World Financial Markets Stals said net capital outflows to the rest of the world for a decade beginning in 1984 placed an effective ceiling on the growth potential of the South African economy “The capital outflows, however, suddenly switched into net inflows as from April 1994. After registering a net capital outflow of R15-billion in the balance of payments for 1993, net inflows of R5.4-billion and R22-billion occurred in 1994 and 1995, respectively. This reversal had a major impact on the growth potential of the economy, and last year’s growth rate of 3.5 percent was the best South Africa experienced since 1988,” said a delighted Stals. In the same speech Stals said that the mighty South Africa - the world’s biggest gold producer - effectively had a depleted official gold and foreign reserve by the time the apartheid regime had come to an end. “…the Reserve Bank also started replenishing the
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