The President of South Africa has recognized telecom giant, Vodacom, and
international tech firm, Huawei among other corporate institutions for their continuous
support of the just-ended South Africa Investment Conference.
At a closing dinner of the 2023 SA Investment Conference, President Cyril
Ramaphosa presented Vodacom with two awards for its continued support of the
conference, one was for Infrastructure Investment Award, and the second was for
being a Consistent Investment Conference Partner.
He also presented
Huawei with an award for its continued support and partnership with the SAIC,
since its launch in 2018. Huawei is a key partner in South Africa’s digital
economy transformation and also invests heavily in ICT skills training.
President
Cyril Ramaphosa, had earlier in the day thanked this year’s sponsors, saying,
“I want to thank the sponsors for their generosity. These are the Industrial
Development Corporation, Vodacom, Anglo American, ARM, Exxaro, Google, Thungela
Resources, Huawei, Samsung, SAB, Discovery, Transnet, and Coca-Cola.”
The 5th South
Africa Investment Conference was held at the Sandton Convention in
Johannesburg, where investors pledged to build the country’s economy and
achieve a five-year target of R1.2 trillion in investment.
SAIC serves
as a platform where South Africa and its representatives position the country
as a globally relevant player and partner for trade and investment that can
compete with the best in the world.
As a major
Chinese investor in South Africa, Huawei is a key partner in the development of
telecommunications infrastructure in South Africa. Huawei is also one of the
few major technology companies to address the technical skills challenges in
South Africa.
The country’s
ICT sector has played an important role in the success of the investment drive.
Besides Huawei, which is actively investing in South Africa, companies such as
Vodacom, M- TEC, rain and Teraco have also contributed to the investment drive.
Vodacom, which is owned by Vodafone, has
pledged to invest another R60 billion in South Africa over the next five years.
Over the past
five years, Vodacom has significantly improved network coverage in the country,
in line with its vision to reach everyone in South Africa regardless of their
location. This has been achieved primarily by investing in additional network
sites and base stations in remote areas, some of which have had no network
coverage since the early 1990s.
