After working for seven years in the UK, Tyron Whitley last year made the move back home to South Africa with some trepidation. But 18 months on, his company, the South African Car Import Agency (SA-CIA), which helps other returnees ship their vehicles back from emigre destinations – has been a success and the 34 year old now feels pretty positive about his native land.

“When we first came back, we wondered what we were doing. Crime was a concern and initially power cuts meant that we found ourselves sitting in the house with candles studying how generators worked,” he says. “But doing business here has been a breeze.”

His experience illustrates the contradictory character of South Africa as a place to work. On the one hand, its legal system, banking and financial facilities, and road infrastructure compare favorably with those of the developed world. On the other, around early 2008, South Africa experienced a period of erratic electricity supply. Also, the incidence of crime, especially violent crime, is among the worst anywhere. It must be noted that, over the past year, South Africa has made significant progress in dealing with the power issue and power blackouts are, for the most part, now a rarity.

A glance at this year’s tables measuring the ease of doing business and prepared by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – the business arm of the World Bank – highlights South Africa’s advantages. South Africa ranks 34th, only three places behind France, well ahead of other European countries such as Spain, Portugal, and Italy and substantially ahead of fashionably large emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, China and India, the so-called BRICs. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: BEE, Bheki Cele, Black Economic Empowerment, Careers, Eskom, Gill Marcus, IFC, International Finance Corporation, Jacob Zuma, Nestle, Pravin Gordhan, Ravi Pillay, SA-CIA, South Africa, South African Car Import Agency, Tyron Whitley, World Bank