S. Africa remains attractive investment destination: cabinet

South Africa is open for business and South Africans are encouraged to embrace private public partnership that aims to achieve the country's economic vision, the cabinet has said.

The cabinet issued a statement on Thursday night after a lengthy cabinet meeting in Cape Town in response to a decision by Futuregrowth Asset Management to withhold additional funding to a number of South African state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

"South Africa remains an attractive investment destination through its highly developed first-world economic infrastructure and a robust emerging market economy," the statement said.

Futuregrowth, Africa's biggest private fixed-income money manager with about 170 billion rand (about 12 billion U.S. dollars) of assets, announced its decision on Wednesday to freeze lending to the country's parastatals due to in-fighting between South Africa's Treasury and state-owned enterprises.

The decision came just weeks after the cabinet decided to place President Jacob Zuma in charge of overseeing all SOEs.

The decision has raised concern over the economic prospects of the country hit by sluggish economic growth, unstable financial market and the weakening rand.

Despite the challenges, the government remains committed to delivering quality infrastructure and related services in line with its commitment to ensuring a better life for all, the cabinet said.

South Africa's attractiveness as an investment destination was confirmed with President Zuma signing bilateral agreements with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, with the purpose of further strengthening friendly cooperation between African states and China at the Johannesburg FOCAC Summit late last year, the statement said.

"The government's partnership with the private sector remains resilient and this partnership has yielded positive results," said Donald Liphoko, Acting Director-General of the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS).

He said the government is confident that its sound economic and fiscal policies and the inherent strength of the economy bear testimony to the results already achieved.

"We are positive that public entities have in place governance structures, mechanisms and processes to weather any storm," Liphoko said, adding that SOEs are geared for economic growth and have a fundamental role to play in achieving the state's developmental objectives. Endit