South Africa’s Black firms face $45B funding gap
The findings come three decades after the government introduced measures aimed at reversing the dispossession suffered by Black people under apartheid.
A report reveals that South African Black-owned firms face a substantial $45 billion funding gap, despite the government's decades-long efforts to address this issue. This disparity is attributed to "explicit investor bias," along with challenges like limited collateral and governance concerns. These findings emerge three decades after the introduction of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) measures, designed to rectify the dispossession suffered by Black people during apartheid and colonialism.
The study, released by British International Investment and Sweden’s Swedfund, both state-owned development finance institutions, arrives as Washington intensifies pressure on Pretoria to dismantle BEE. US Ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III has added scrapping the policy to a list of demands aimed at enhancing the investment climate. However, Pretoria has remained firm on retaining the policy, despite internal disagreements within the coalition government.
The focus has since shifted towards establishing a $60 billion fund to support the growth of small Black-owned businesses.
Written by urgent.news from Semafor's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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