Gordhan meets business leaders as SA junk rating looms

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan met with top business leaders on January 29 to discuss steps to boost investor sentiment and avert a credit rating downgrade to junk.

About 60 chief executive officers representing industries ranging from banking to mining met with Gordhan for two-and a half hours at Nedbank Group’s offices in Johannesburg, Jabu Mabuza, chairperson of Telkom and coordinator of the meeting, said by phone on Monday from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

“The point was to recognise that there is a sense of crisis,” said Mabuza, who also chairs the lobby group Business Unity South Africa.

Executives “left that meeting feeling very positive and confident that as government and business, we are all looking at the same thing, we are all in agreement about the urgency and the crisis nature of the situation.”


Gordhan is seeking to restore confidence in an economy hit by sliding commodity prices, weak demand from China and policy mistakes by President Jacob Zuma toward the end of last year that pushed the rand to record lows.

 Standard & Poor’s in December put South Africa’s BBB- rating on a negative outlook, indicating it may downgrade the nation’s debt to below investment grade.