South Africa ranked sixtieth out of 77 destinations in terms of investment attractiveness, Canada-based public policy research organisation Fraser Institute’s 2020 Survey of Mining Companies, released on February 23, has shown.
The country had ranked fortieth out of 76 destinations in 2019.
Further, South Africa’s investment attractiveness score had worsened to 56.33 in 2020, from 64.79 in 2019.
The country’s ranking on the policy perceptions index, however, improved to 66 out of 77 jurisdictions, compared with 55 out of 76 in 2019.
Meanwhile, although the median score for Africa on the investment attractiveness index had improved by nine points in 2020, it remains the second least attractive jurisdiction for investment with a median score of 60.83.
Africa’s median policy perception index score also increased by almost 20 points and it is no longer the worst performing region in terms of policy environment for mining activities.
In fact, all African jurisdictions, with the exception of Namibia, increased their policy scores, the survey noted.
Botswana is the highest ranked jurisdiction in Africa on policy, ranking fifteenth out of 77. This was an improvement of eight points compared with its ranking in 2019.
Namibia, the only African jurisdiction that did not improve its policy perception index score, experienced a 13-point decline in its policy score, making it drop in the overall policy ranking from fourteenth out of 76 jurisdictions in 2019 to forty-seventh of 77 in 2020.
Three African countries – Zimbabwe, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo – were in the bottom ten of the survey rankings this year based on policy. Zimbabwe was also among the bottom ten in the previous eight years.
Based on their overall investment attractiveness two African jurisdictions were ranked in the global bottom ten, namely Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
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