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South African business, labour union and government leaders have given themselves ten days to agree on a recovery plan before presenting it to President Cyril Ramaphosa, people familiar with the situation said.
A select group of leaders met under the auspices of the National Economic Development and Labour Council on Tuesday to discuss the plan and will convene again on September 3 to finalise it, the people said on condition of anonymity as a public statement hasn’t been made.
The priorities range from infrastructure investment and boosting small and medium-sized enterprises to cracking down on corruption. The measures are aimed at charting a way out of the country’s biggest expected economic contraction in almost nine decades this year -- a meltdown that was brought on by the coronavirus and a lockdown aimed at curbing its spread.
Ramaphosa convened the Nedlac talks earlier this month in a bid to accelerate an economic recovery.