South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has encouraged South African businesses to reach out to their Commonwealth counterparts across the globe to forge closer ties and create avenues for greater trade and investment.

In an address in London, on Wednesday, he said that the Commonwealth Business Forum provided a platform to promote trade, investment and the exchange of skills and knowledge between the 53 member States of the intergovernmental organisation.

Most Commonwealth countries have historical trade and investment ties, similar legal systems, forms of government and a common language of commerce, providing advantageous conditions for greater investment and trade across the Commonwealth, which is an intergovernmental organisation of 53-member states that are mostly former territories of the British Empire.

“It is significant that the majority of Commonwealth members are developing countries, which experience similar social and economic challenges, including poverty, inequality and under-development. Many of these country face infrastructure shortages, have limited manufacturing capacity and often have poor educational outcomes,” Ramaphosa said.

The Commonwealth has a critical role to play in forging common responses to these challenges, he said.

“We need to grapple with the impact the Fourth Industrial Revolution is likely to have on our economies, many of which are already vulnerable to external shocks, and our people, many of whom do not have the skills required in a rapidly changing workplace.”

The challenges and opportunities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution should feature prominently on the agenda of the Commonwealth, Ramaphosa noted.

In responding to the challenges of technological change, the South African President explained that the Commonwealth had to focus greater attention on the development of human capital.

“Just as the machine becomes ever more capable of performing tasks that only humans could previously undertake, there is an ever greater need for people to expand their knowledge and acquire new skills.”

Owing to this, Ramaphosa averred that the Commonwealth should assist these countries in redesigning education systems to ensure equitable access to quality education that prepares young people for the new economy.

“In working towards a common future, we also need to consider the potential effects – both negative and positive – of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union. As both government and business leaders, we need to be having a serious discussion about what this means for the members of the Commonwealth.

“Our [South Africa] experience on the African continent confirms that the most effective way of addressing challenges of economic growth and social development is through cooperation across borders,” Ramaphosa noted.

This approach, he explained, was at the heart of the efforts to promote greater economic integration across the continent.

Ramaphosa further enthused that Africa achieved a milestone last month, when the continent’s leaders met in Kigali, Rwanda, under the auspices of the African Union to agree on the establishment of an African Continental Free Trade Area.

The establishment of the free trade area in Africa would enable the transfer of goods, services, skills and technology, and access to a market of more than a billion people.

However, the creation of a free trade area alone it is not enough, the President warned.

“It needs to be accompanied by the development of the infrastructure that is going to carry these goods and generate the power that is going to enable their production. It needs to be accompanied by investments in universities, schools, hospitals and clinics, communication technology and water reticulation.”

For South Africa, Ramaphosa said continental integration was fundamental to the advancement of the national agenda.

“It is only through greater investment and trade between African countries that we will be able to address our own challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment.”

Having entered a new era of optimism after several years of poor growth, limited investment and constrained public finances, Ramaphosa stated during his speech that the South African economy was starting to show signs of revival.

This, he added, was taking place alongside a process of political renewal, which aimed to restore the credibility of public institutions in South Africa, tackle corruption and wastage and strengthen the capacity of the state.

In addition, South Africa this week announced an ambitious investment drive that aimed to generate at least $100-billion in new investment over the next five years.

This drive would culminate in an Investment Conference later this year, which would bring together investors from within South Africa and from other parts of the world.

“I have appointed four investment envoys to go right across the world, to go and campaign for investments for our country because once again South Africa is truly open for investment. We expect that investors from other Commonwealth countries will be prominent among those participating at the conference – and that it will include several of the people attending the Commonwealth Business Forum.”

Ramaphosa on Wednesday also met with the head of the Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth II.