Category: Prime Minister (1990-1997)

Below is the text of Mr Major’s press conference in Pretoria, held on 22nd September 1994.

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PRIME MINISTER:

Let me say something about the visit to South Africa over the last few days. I am now very near the end of my visit. I think it has been a remarkable visit and I have to say on a personal level that it has moved me like few other visits I have made in the past. I do not think that anyone, with any sense of history at all, could fail to be aware that this is a quite extraordinary moment in South Africa’s history. And in the last few days what we have seen is a country that is crossing from a very troubled past into a future that I believe has a substantial amount of hope and opportunity.

I have been extraordinarily impressed by the determination from President Mandela, Deputy President Mbeki, Deputy President De Klerk, and other senior officials, to make sure that those hopes and those opportunities for South Africans are met. They are under no illusions about the size and scale of the task, they know there will be set-backs as well as advances, but they are determined to proceed and I hope and I believe they will succeed.

My purpose in coming was to renew and refresh an old friendship, but it was also to extend cooperation to South Africa, and to ordinary South Africans. The visit has been rich in symbolism, frankly it could scarcely have been otherwise given the intertwine nature of Britain’s long relationship with South Africa. But I think it has also established a practical framework for cooperation, and it has also set in train important programmes of partnership across a wide range of activities.

I think that the balance sheet of this visit has been quite extraordinarily positive, and perhaps I might remind you of just some of its main features.

President Mandela and I signed four important agreements. Firstly an agreement on promoting and protecting investment. Investment from overseas self-evidently is going to be one of the keys to South Africa’s future prosperity, Britain is already the largest investor in South Africa and I want to encourage British businessmen to move forward from that base, to come to South Africa, to increase the investment they have got here, or to make an initial investment if they have not previously been in this country. And everything that I have heard from the businessmen who are with me has been optimistic about their view of the future for South Africa and the business prospects of those who invest in South Africa. I find that enormously encouraging because investment flows will dwarf any other government to government assistance, however generous it might be, in improving the quality of life and the prospects for people in South Africa. What the agreement I signed has done is to provide would-be investors in both our countries with the security of a proper regulatory framework for their investments.

Next we signed an agreement on development cooperation. Together with the South African government, we have identified those areas where 550 million Rands worth of aid, which we will commit over the next three years, can most usefully be spent. We will work with the South African government in education, in health, in agriculture, in local government, and in helping South Africans set up and run small businesses. Lynda Chalker, who has been with me throughout this visit, and has played such a role in it, will provide any further details that any of you may wish to have.

I am delighted also that British business will be playing its own role. Under the Soweto Skills Initiative, 30 British firms, so far, have agreed to invite businessmen from Soweto for training in Britain, and at the end of that training they will bring back the experience and the skills they have gathered to South Africa to help build its new future.

We signed also an agreement on Cooperation in Science, Technology and Engineering. As of course you will know, I have been accompanied on this visit by Sir Michael Atyer, the President of the Royal Society, and by Professor Sir William Stewart, my Chief Scientific Adviser. They have reached agreement on this trip with their opposite numbers on how to carry forward this pooling of scientific knowledge in appropriate areas. The British Cabinet Minister responsible for science, David Hunt, will follow up with a visit to South Africa in the very near future.

Finally, we have signed an agreement which provides a framework for the assistance that we are giving in integrating the South African Armed Forces. I have only this morning visited the British Military Advisory and Training scheme at Walmanstall, and I have to say to you that I was deeply impressed by the remarkable progress that they are making. Britain has a very long history of achievement in assisting the Armed Forces of Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and many other countries, in integrating a comprehensive defence force, and I am delighted that the South African Government chose to invite the British Army to undertake this particular responsibility in South Africa. I agreed this morning that if the South African Government wished the BMAT team to stay on beyond the original date then they will do so for as long as they are needed and can usefully assist in South Africa.

Yesterday, as many of you I think will know, I opened the Round Table Business Seminar, conducted by the CBI and the South African Chamber of Business. On our side that was attended by a team of senior businessmen, under the leadership of Howard Davies, the Director General of the CBI. I attended only the beginning but I am told by the businessmen that it was a very successful event and a number of the senior businessmen have identified new opportunities with South African partners. When the businessmen rejoin me on the aircraft this evening we will debrief and round up on the results of their meetings with their South African partners, I do not yet have them all but I know that it has been, from their point of view, a successful occasion, and I am very keen to ensure that the momentum given by trade to this visit should be sustained and built on, not just in the short term but in the long term.

The CBI and the Chamber of Business have themselves decided to draw up an agreement which, for the first time, will put their cooperation on a permanent footing. All this will give a tremendous impetus to our “Opportunity South Africa” campaign which will bring a number of high powered trade missions to South Africa over the next 12 months.

In my speech the other day to the South African Parliament, I explained why I thought that sport should play a key role in the assistance that we wish to give to the townships in South Africa. Yesterday, unless I very much missed my mark, many of you here this morning were as moved as I was by the boundless enthusiasm of those youngsters at Alexandra.

The coaching sessions you saw were but a part of the sports initiative for the townships. Overnight I can report to you two further important developments. As some of you may know, in Cape Town Sir Colin Cowdrey, who is here with me this morning, and I met leading figures from the Western Province Cricket Association. Sir Colin is President-elect of the Lords Taverners who are engaged in pioneering work to develop cricket in the townships. As a result of our Cape Town meeting, the Lords Taverners have decided to donate in excess of 100,000 Rand to provide a Lords Taverners mini-bus to help the young township cricketers of the Western Cape. I am extremely grateful to Colin, and also to Brian Bullock, the Chairman of the Lords Taverners, who is also with us here this morning, for their generosity. It was typical of the way in which the Taverners deal with matters of this sort, and the speed with which they reacted is something for which I am extremely grateful and I am delighted to see them both here this morning.

Secondly, at dinner last night here on this lawn, again I think attended by a number of the people present here this morning, a most enjoyable occasion, I mentioned at my table to a group of distinguished businessmen, that what was needed at Alexandra Park was a Club House on the cricket pitch, not a novel idea of mine but one that was mentioned to me by Ali Baka [phon] during the course of the day. “What we need”, he said, “is that sort of building on the cricket pitch”. Well, with an instinctive generosity, and I assure you, little arm twisting on my part, five of the businessmen present agreed to pledge 55,000 Rand each to the cost of a pavilion at Alexandra Park. Those companies are: Anglo-American, Anglo-Vaal, Sasol, Glaxo and Racall, and I am extremely grateful also to them for their generosity and we will put those arrangements for the construction of that pavilion in hand as speedily as possible.

In my speech to parliament I announced that Her Majesty The Queen would be delighted to accept President Mandela’s invitation to visit South Africa in the spring of next year. I can tell you this morning that Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, will also pay an official visit to South Africa in a few weeks time, in November.

This visit has I think set relations between Britain and South Africa on a course which will improve, increase and develop our cooperation right across the board. The way is now open, not only for further government to government contacts, important though those are, but for businessmen and people in all walks of life to extend and to thicken the many bonds that tie our two countries.

Let me, before I take your questions, end on a personal note. The enduring memory that I will take back from this visit is of the prospects for South Africa and for the young South Africans that we have seen on so many occasions over the last few days. Ultimately it will be up to South Africa and South Africans to make those prospects a reality. I have come here not only with the promise, but with the practical demonstration that Britain will help South Africa give its people the future that I believe they deserve.

It has been a most enjoyable visit and I shall leave here with a great deal of regret and look forward to returning at, I hope, not too long a distance in time.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

QUESTION (Simon Walters):

What do you say to some people back in Britain who might say why don’t we spend the money that we are spending in South Africa on trade and aid and the development of sporting links in poorer parts of Britain where they need these things? How would you relate this visit to people back home?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think the first thing I would say to the British nation, who are a pretty open-hearted and generous nation, is: “Come and see for yourself what that will mean to the townships through the expenditure of those resources!” and from what I know of the open-heartedness of the British, I doubt that very many people would close their hearts to the self-evident need that you can find out here.

As far as assistance in the United Kingdom is concerned, you will know the amount of trade assistance that exists and I needn’t detail it to you.

As far as sport is concerned, starting within a very few months as a result of the legislation to establish a national lottery, within two or three years British sport will have an almost guaranteed sum of around £300 million sterling each and every year to develop sport in the United Kingdom and if you can put that in context, if you just think back over the last decade and imagine what the expenditure of £3 billion sterling would have done to British sport, I think you begin to see the tremendous opportunities that open up so I don’t believe anyone will begrudge the assistance we have been able to offer.

QUESTION:

You spoke yesterday about maintaining those trade barriers. Do you believe South Africa should scrap the [indistinct] rand?

PRIME MINISTER:

I had in mind the trade barriers around the world. When we sought to improve the access for South African products for example to the European Union, we made some progress under the generalised system of preferences but not enough – it was a move forward but not sufficient.

The relevant point is that closed trade barriers whether here or elsewhere – it is not for me to look at individual matters, the South African Government will themselves look at it over a period of time and they must take their time and do it thoroughly – but as a general principle, if one closes trade barriers both sides lose. Protection doesn’t work, protection simply inspires counter-protection, diminishes the flow of trade and diminishes the prospects for employment, growth, tax yields and prosperity for people and that is a trend that is increasingly recognised.
I am keen to see the European market fully open to South Africa; it is opening – there is more to be done.

QUESTION (Kevin Brown, Financial Times):

One of the themes of your visit here has been economic liberalisation. In the light of the talks that you have had and the RDP White Paper which has been issued this morning, do you think you have been instrumental in persuading the South African Government to speed up their programme of economic reform?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think they have in mind to pursue a programme of economic reform. I would not be so impertinent as to suggest that I had been instrumental in speeding it up.

What I have been clear about in the discussions is that the South African Government are well aware of the need to create the right climate for the private sector and for private enterprise; they see no ideological barrier to creating that. They have to look at economic reality and the speed and pace at which they can move but the direction of their movement is not only clear from the discussions, I think it is clear from some of the agreements I signed with President Mandela and I think that there is a degree of confidence that business can have over the direction in which policy is moving.

QUESTION (Paul Reynolds):

Did you find the remarks of Lady Thatcher on investment in South Africa unhelpful in that she did say that investment was not in fact coming in at the moment which appeared to conflict with your repeatedly optimistic views?

PRIME MINISTER:

I wasn’t sure that what was said to me yesterday about Lady Thatcher’s remarks was in context and for this reason: over a long period of time she has encouraged British firms to maintain their investment in South Africa. Right through recent years and throughout the period that she was Prime Minister she encouraged and sanctioned a great deal of direct assistance into the townships in South Africa. That she wishes South Africa well and has done continually I don’t believe there is a shred of doubt. I think the statement she issued to correct some misunderstanding last night answers the point thoroughly.

QUESTION:

[Indistinct] South Africa while there are still unresolved [indistinct] deeds of the South African arms industry?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think the circumstances have changed if you look at what has happened in South Africa. Take for example in terms of the changed atmosphere where I was this morning to illustrate the point I am making. I was at the military training centre this morning.

What is actually happening is the incorporation into the South African Defence Force of people who were sworn enemies of the South African Defence Force. That is an astonishing sea change. You only had to have sat with me in the dining room where Harold Macmillan made his famous “Wind of Change” speech and see politicians who had been total opponents a few years ago seated at the same table talking to realise the remarkable changes there have been in South Africa.

I think it is right to take the approach that has been taken and support it even in the area you suggest.

QUESTION:

[Indistinct] South Africans who breach their laws stand trial. There is still an unresolved court case in Britain – South Africans jumped bail in the 1980s of £400,000 and came here. Britain seems unconcerned about this.

PRIME MINISTER:

I have indicated I have got a good deal of faith in the prospects of South Africa and in the South African Government. I can’t answer for other governments, I can only answer for mine.

QUESTION:

You talked about a visit rich in symbolism and following up what you said there about reconciliation among groups that once were opposed, do you see any symbolic parallels with what has happened here and what you are trying to achieve in Northern Ireland?

PRIME MINISTER:

Not really, no. I can see why some people may think there is. think the circumstances are different but what is not different is that while tremendous progress – remarkable progress – has been made here, we are making progress now in Northern Ireland as well and we must continue to do so but I don’t think the underlying basis of the disagreement is remotely similar so I don’t see necessary parallels. The parallel I do see is that in both South Africa and in Northern Ireland welcome progress is now being made.

QUESTION (Colin Brown, The Independent):

Following on that point, having had negotiations with the leader of the ANC who is now the President, would you hope at one stage to have negotiations with Gerry Adams?

PRIME MINISTER:

That is not imminent, is it? What we are waiting to hear at the moment is confirmation that what they are seeking to intimate, namely that they have given up violence for good, is really their position. I am waiting for them to make that clear. If it is their position, then I hope they will make it clear. As I have said before, I am not hung up on them using any particular set of words to do so.

I just want it to be unambiguously clear so there is confidence amongst the people who in due course will need to sit down and talk with Sinn Fein that they are not going suddenly to decide to pick up arms and renew violence again. They can do it how they wish in the words they wish but I think those people who will have to negotiate with them and the people who live in Northern Ireland will want to have that assurance. I think they are moving towards it and I am very pleased about the fact that they are moving towards it.

In due course, once they have cleared that hurdle, there will be a short period of up to three months and at that stage at official level we will engage in discussions with Sinn Fein about how we can bring them into the political talks proper; they will then sit around the table at the political talks proper and whether Mr. Adams represents Sinn Fein is a matter for Sinn Fein but he may well be there.

QUESTION:

Prime Minister, do you think your visit here has improved the chances of Jarrow getting the order for the corvettes?

PRIME MINISTER:

That is a matter for the South African Government, I can’t comment on that. I can only say it is a very fine product.

QUESTION:

Prime Minister, you have been here and preached your distinctive economic message. You have obviously had a good response from the business community but I wonder, knowing your experience of difficulties at home where unemployment, poverty and social disparities are far less acute than they are here and you have an enormous amount of political trouble at home and a lot of side effects from the consequences of your economic message, can people here be expected to be as patient in wanting the rewards of the good life as you seem to expect them to be with the message you are advocating?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think what the South African Government wish to achieve is something that is permanent and something that is going to last. I think you are quite right that expectations are very high and some movement will need to be made towards those expectations. That is very well understood by the South African Government and it is the principal reason of course why it is so necessary to encourage the flow of inward investment because if you look at what people would most wish to see in South Africa, I believe apart from the maintenance of the peaceful climate that exists, what they would most wish to see is a growth of jobs as speedily as possible. A growth of jobs requires investment; it doesn’t matter to the person who is unemployed whether that investment comes domestically or whether it comes from one of the substantial number of overseas companies who are investing in this country, what is needed is the money, the investment, to create the enterprises, to create the jobs, to create the security for South Africans.

I said earlier – and you intimated that you had that point in mind in your question – that there were going to be many difficult decisions to be taken in the future, there were going to be setbacks as well as advances. What I think is appropriate in the atmosphere that exists is that that process of advance can be visibly seen to be continuing. I think if that is the ease then the South African Government although of course they will face difficulties will have every chance of carrying their programme successfully through.

QUESTION:

You just mentioned the peaceful climate in South Africa. How concerned are you about the potential for political instability in the Zulu camp?

PRIME MINISTER:

It is an area of concern. What is remarkable when one steps back of course is that the area of concern is now only there and I think that is a problem that can be dealt with. One has seen the changes. It is not all that very many months ago that you might have been asking me whether the Zulus would take part in the elections and yet with the right political leadership they did and now Chief Buthelezi has a very significant role in the Government as the minister responsible for home affairs. Of course these points will arise from time to time, this one in Kwazulu [phon] and conceivably others elsewhere, but if the good sense prevails that has prevailed in remarkable fashion over recent months, then I don’t think it will be a permanent problem.

QUESTION (German Press Agency):

Could you expand on your preventive diplomacy that you outlined in your speech to Parliament and can you tell us what the response of the South African Government was to this? I am sorry if you answered this before but I was not present.

PRIME MINISTER:

No, I haven’t answered it before and I am afraid I am not in detail going to answer it right now for this reason: the British Ambassador at the United Nations may be conducting further discussions about this today and the Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, will set out in much greater detail what we propose when he speaks to the United Nations early next week.

I trailed the fact that we are actually looking at this initiative. I think it is an important initiative. In principle, it has been warmly welcomed by the South African Government but I would prefer not to get into the details of it until we make a full announcement.

QUESTION:

Prime Minister, do you feel that a high profile visit like this to South Africa will help you domestically with your opinion poll ratings when you get back home which are still running at a record low?

PRIME MINISTER:

I have no idea. Time will tell but that wasn’t the purpose of the visit. I seem to remember having that question from Paul Wilenius just before the last election! Remind me of the result of the last election, Paul!

QUESTION (Jeremy Thompson, Sky News):

I will save you and bring you back to Africa, Prime Minister! You talked in the Parliament about your desire to help in South Africa and particularly in trying to turn the tide in Africa itself. Are you really optimistic that things can change for the better in this Continent?

PRIME MINISTER:

I think they most certainly can. If you look at what the position was a few years ago, the number of wars that existed south of the Sahara most of which with the exception of Angola have now been completed, if you look at what has happened in South Africa which few people would have predicted just a few years ago, you can see what advances have been made.

What I think is not a pipe dream but more of a probability is that the South African example will have an impact northwards in the African Continent. South Africa is a potential giant in the African Continent not only economically but politically and diplomatically over years and I think its example will spread elsewhere.

I am not predicting that all the problems are going to go away tomorrow, that would clearly be absurd. What I am saying is that I think that with the example of South Africa, with the example of what has actually happened in the last five years – we all have a great tendency to look at today’s problems and forget what yesterday’s problems were that have been solved – I believe that there is every prospect that we can make quite remarkable advances in the Continent of Africa – I speak particularly of sub-Saharan Africa – over the last years of this century and the early years of the next and profoundly hope that that will be the case.

Below is the text of Mr Major’s interview in Johannesburg, held on Wednesday 21st September 1994.

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QUESTION:

[Mr Major was asked about his role in the progress made in South Africa]

PRIME MINISTER:

I think if you had been with me today, going out into the townships, you could have seen some of the role we have played, because throughout this period in the townships we have been producing practical measures to help, not so much interested in political gestures, but practical measures to help with education, to help with sport, to help with community facilities, to help with medical facilities, and we have not just started doing that now, that has been done for very many years throughout the last decade and for far longer. So the role we have always seen ourselves playing is in helping to prepare South Africa for the post-apartheid period, now that has arrived and I think we can build on that and work with the South African government to produce the better future that everybody here would like to see.

Our concern always has been to get South Africa to a position where the opportunities that her people deserve, all the people watching this programme deserve, they will actually be able to have those opportunities. Now we are through the difficult period. The time has come when those opportunities can actually be provided. A good deal of assistance can come from government to government, and I have announced a range of areas where we can help. In addition to that of course, what is it I suppose that most of the people watching this programme would like to see for South Africa? They would like to see economic prosperity for South Africa, jobs for people in South Africa, opportunities for people in South Africa, they would like all the young people to grow up in a stable secure South Africa offering opportunities for all of them.

Now that means investment, it means business growth, it means the right sort of education. Those are the practical measures that we have been helping with and that we think Great Britain is best placed to help with in the future, and that is what I have been indicating on this visit.

Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to the South African Chamber of Business in Johannesburg, held on Wednesday 21st September 1994.

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PRIME MINISTER:

Mr President, Mr Premier, Ladies and Gentlemen. It was very kind of you, over the last few minutes, to have thanked me so graciously for the very warm welcome my country was privileged to give to the South African cricket team this summer. They certainly were very welcome guests indeed, everyone was pleased to see them – the public, the sports community, the government, and of course Mr Devon Malcolm, who was especially pleased that they turned up. He asked me to send them his very best wishes and to say how much he looks forward to meeting them again.

I have come this morning, Mr President, literally come hot-foot from the Alexandra Township. And I daresay many of you will not be over-surprised to hear that I spent much of the last two hours on a sports field. And if you may think that that is not normal every day behaviour for a Prime Minister on a working visit, let me say to you that I believe there is a real point to it If I am not very much mistaken, this morning I have been with some of the people who hold the key to this country’s future, youngsters with boundless energy, kids to whom life has done very few favours in the past, but with a great deal of hope, and from what I saw in the nets, no little guile and cunning.

And the cricketers amongst you perhaps will not be too impressed to hear that I was in some trouble in the nets, it was a touch like Question Time in the House of Commons, the only difference being there my own side get to bowl at me as well, which I think generally is helpful. But if it is not breach of professional ethics, I might reveal that Colin Cowdrey and Alec Stewart saw a thing or two this morning, and so did Bobby Charlton and Judy Simpson. And if Rob Andrew looks just that touch sharper when he comes here next year to take the Rugby World Cup with him, it could just be the fact of the tutelage he had in tackling this morning from those township boys in Alexandra.

These are the young men and women who are going to provide the entrepreneurs, the managers, the technology experts of the future, their future is South Africa’s future, and are they going to have the opportunities for educational advancement, are their hopes going to be turned from dreams today, into realities tomorrow? The answer must be ‘Yes’, the right answer and I believe the answer that will come about is ‘Yes’, and the future of South Africa will then be very bright indeed.

These are very early days in South Africa’s new age. But shining through all my discussions yesterday, with President Mandela, with the Deputy Presidents and with other Ministers, shining through every one of those discussions was their determination that the Government of National Unity would succeed. They feel that the system that they have set up is working, they take justifiably, I believe, pride in its success thus far. They clearly want to keep the country on its present course and I formed the judgment that they will go to very great lengths indeed to ensure that under their leadership the new South Africa binds a stable basis for the years ahead. And not least, they understand very clearly how vital this is for business confidence, for growth, for jobs, for the tax yield to fund social improvements that comes out of economic success. And of course in this they must surely be right.

To me, therefore, there could not be a better time to launch Britain’s new relationship with South Africa on its course. And also to encourage both our businessmen and those of South Africa.

I had yesterday the signal honour of addressing your Parliament, the first British Prime Minister since Harold Macmillan to do so. And I spoke yesterday about the new beginning that you have made in South Africa, and I described my hopes for a new fellowship in Britain’s relationship with South Africa.

So let me not reiterate those points specifically, but move on today and focus on a crucial part of that relationship – our business and commercial ties, for without doubt, economic renewal will be the key to South Africa’s future, and with it all is possible.

Mr President, your Director General, Raymond Parsons, has been travelling the world on behalf of South African business. And I was very much struck by a phrase he used in the United States just a week or so ago. He said this: “From the denial of opportunity, to the creation of opportunity”. My central message to you today is that Britain is eager to share in the creation of that opportunity.

Countless countries no doubt will give the same message, the difference is that we mean it and we propose to do something about it. I believe Britain has a head start on others because we begin with such a long history of shared endeavour and shared experience.

Let me touch on some matters of importance. Despite the appalling problems of apartheid, the business and commercial links between Britain and South Africa, though less than they otherwise would have been, are very strong indeed. The annual value of two-way trade between us exceeds 15 billion Rand. Britain is South Africa’s second largest supplier, and I exclude invisible services when I use that particular statistic. We are also your second largest export market. Our exports to you have increased by over 23 percent this year, and yours are growing very rapidly to us as well.

To underpin these efforts, I was able to tell your Parliament yesterday that over 1 billion sterling extra export credit cover is now available for British companies doing business here. South Africa is one of our Export Credit Guarantee Department’s top three markets worldwide for business, and I expect that cover will be taken up by British businesses in the months ahead.

We have also very healthy two-way investment. You are significant investors in Britain, and Britain is by far the largest overseas investor in South Africa. Our investments here are approaching 10 billion sterling and touch nearly every single part of your national life. Over the last three years, 68 British companies have made new investments in South Africa, more we believe than any other country.

But that is happening already, this the present. Let us turn to the future. We wish to extend these trade and investment links much further, and when I say that I speak not only for the British government, but for British business as well, as the high powered team of businessmen with me amply demonstrate.

Britain is alive with interest in the new South Africa, alive with interest in the two-way opportunities that it offers. An ample testimony of this is the nature of the team of leading businessmen and financiers who have come with me on this visit, together with two of my Ministers, Tony Nelson, a senior Minister at the Treasury, and Lynda Chalker, the Minister for Africa and Overseas Development; and Howard Davies, the Director General of the CBI, is here to speak for British industry and then to report back to British industry as well. Over 50 other British businessmen have joined us here. Many of them came with Michael Heseltine on his memorable visit in July, and were keen to come back. I believe they will come back, and back, and back, and back again, for many years as our trade flows and investment flows increase.

But if numbers are anything to go by, their interest and enthusiasm is clearly more than matched by businessmen here in South Africa. I know there are here at this lunch today businessmen from long established and highly respected South African countries, and there are also representatives of some of your newer companies too who are beginning to share in the South African enterprise. Your presence here today demonstrates, in concrete terms, the potential for growth in South Africa.

My business team covers many of Britain’s finest industries, from heavy engineering and construction, to water services and health care. I deliberately brought a particularly strong group from our financial services sector since the City of London and South Africa have a long history of cooperation and mutual respect.

Here today are Christopher Benson, Chairman of Sun Alliance; Timothy Barker, Chairman of Kleinwert Bensen; Michael Dobson, Chief Executive of Morgan Grenfell; Michael Marks, Chief Executive of Smith Newcourt; Brian Pearce, formerly of Barclays and now, among other things, Chairman of British Invisibles; and Lord Cairns, Chief Executive of Warburgs, who have announced this week that Warburgs will open an office here in Johannesburg.

All of them, I know, are keen to add their expertise to that of South Africa’s own sophisticated financial services industry. And they are particularly well placed, well placed by experience, to advise on the opportunities for privatisation, having worked so closely with the British government on our own extensive privatisation programme.

Our team will be sitting down this afternoon with many of you present, sitting down to explore the prospects for new business in both our countries. They will report back both to the British, and to the South African, governments and we will then seek to act on their recommendations. Government and business both have a central role in building the future for South Africa.

And that is why the British government is backing to the hilt our businessmen’s confidence in the new South Africa. In July we launched our “Opportunity South Africa” campaign, a campaign which should redouble the interest of British exporters and investors in South Africa. In Cape Town next March the Royal Yacht will be here to host major British promotional events. There will be other British business events in Durban in June and a trade fair in Johannesburg in September. And that, of course, is in addition to our regular programme of missions and trade fairs, 13 this year and more to come in 1995. We are seeking a partnership in practice as part of Britain’s contribution to South Africa.

From afar we have perhaps a unique perspective on what is happening in this country and we have a unique concern for this country. You face, I believe, a twin challenge in South Africa, not just to accelerate economic growth, but also to transform your society, to strengthen local black enterprise, to transform investment both in human capital and in the physical infrastructure, to help your already capable economy move forward into the new era.

Yesterday, President Mandela and I signed a memorandum, a memorandum establishing the framework for development cooperation between Britain and South Africa. Britain has pledged to provide 100 million of development aid over the next 3 years, 60 million as a direct bilateral grant.

This is not just a question of aid, that on its own is helpful but not remotely sufficient. What it means is cooperation, cooperation in your new venture, your reconstruction and development programme, which will give new opportunities as well.

And our cooperation will be targeted on the growth of business in South Africa, providing business skills training in South Africa, helping small businesses, especially black businesses, to market their product, help with maths, science, with English teaching for the disadvantaged, and advice and assistance for new investors here in South Africa in the future.

Many British companies are already making a significant contribution to reconstruction. East Midlands Electricity has established a joint venture in the Kileacher [phon] Township in Cape Town which is now bringing electricity to half a million homes that previously had none. Many British companies are already doing a great deal in providing management skills and training for the workforce of South African companies.

There is, for example, a CBI scholarship scheme which provides placements for young South African engineers in the United Kingdom. Companies like Cable and Wireless, who recently won a major contract for the supply of mobile telephone networks, run active support programmes of this kind. And Smith and Nephew’s educational trust has already assisted some 75 doctors through medical school, and I am delighted to say that they propose to accelerate their programme.

We want to do more to unlock the great business potential that exists in the townships. Two months ago, a large group of senior British businessmen visited Soweto, they talked to the Soweto Chamber of Commerce, and they were so impressed by what they heard that they decided to offer help, practical help, practical help for men and women who were keen to set up their own business. That business culture exists here, as elsewhere, there is a vast demand for people who, given the chance, would wish to establish themselves and their own enterprise, to build their own security, on their own initiative, in their own future, in their own country, and we wish to try and help them do so.

So I am delighted to announce today that some 30 British firms, including many of those who are your guests at this luncheon today, have now undertaken to take businessmen, initially from Soweto, into their own companies to gain experience in management, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, electronics, water construction and information technology. They will take them into their companies, they will train them, they will teach them, they will give them opportunities perhaps that they did not have before, and then they will come back and apply their skills here in their own townships and their own country.

Mr President, to build on the Soweto initiative, we are establishing through the Commonwealth Development Corporation and Banks, a venture capital fund to finance small businesses and the aim is to allow these businesses to grow and to generate wealth which will benefit the whole community.

These are some, a selection, of the practical ways in which we believe we can contribute to South Africa’s future economic development and prosperity. But it is just a beginning. I want to share with you my conviction that the long-term political stability in South Africa will be rewarded with long-term growth and prosperity. South Africa has an enormously strong foundation on which to build, a foundation of world class companies. Their future is in her hands and I, for one, am confident as to what that future will be.

Let me turn finally to some wider economic issues. Let me say a word or two, if I may, about my own country to those businessmen who trade and invest in it, and have a trading relationship with it, who may be here today.

In Britain we now have the most favourable combination of economic circumstances that we have experienced for very many years. Let me explain why that is. Output is rising steadily, the economy as a whole is growing faster than the forecasters had predicted, inflation is at its lowest for a generation, investment .s p 6 percent on just a year ago, consumer demand is growing and unemployment is on a downward path, and importantly, trade is healthy and flourishing, the August figures for British trade with countries outside the European Union were announced only a few hours ago, and I am pleased to tell this audience that exports rose, yet again, to a new record level.

It is to achieve this sort of circumstance, this prospect upon which to build in the future, that we have worked unceasingly in Britain to reduce the burdens on business. I do not pretend remotely that we have reduced all those that we would wish to reduce, and I can say to you categorically that we have not yet remotely finished with this programme of reducing burdens. We seek to scrap unnecessary government regulations, make sure there are no exchange controls, reduce business taxes, eliminate subsidies, transfer old-fashioned state owned industries into dynamic private sector ownership, that is the path that we have been following for many years, and it has set out an opportunity for the future that would not otherwise have been there.

And in Europe, Britain was the driving force behind dismantling trade barriers and creating the Single Market. It is our determination that the European Union will maintain low trade barriers with the rest of the world, and we worked hard to obtain that vital GATT agreement just a few months ago.

I welcome, unreservedly, your South African government’s commitment to the private sector. South Africa is now back in the international community, it has to compete with other economies elsewhere in the world to attract new investment and to sell its products. And many of these countries, not just in Europe, but in South America, Asia and elsewhere, they are increasingly lifting financial controls, reducing tariffs and phasing out special subsidies. You know that to compete it will be essential to follow the same path.

Such changes are not always easy to make, and I understand that they cannot be made at a stroke, but over time they are essential if industry is to be self-reliant and competitive, essential if two-way trade is to expand freely and rapidly, essential to attract the vast array of overseas investment that I believe is waiting there and willing to come from overseas to invest here in South Africa.

we welcome South Africa’s membership of the Southern Africa Development Committee. As relations develop with your neighbours, trade and investment should begin to flow more freely. There is scope for cooperation over essential utilities, electricity, water. But the most effective form of regional cooperation at this stage, may well be to reduce trade barriers and to simplify order procedures, that process holds out the promise of wider regional markets for South African products.

Mr President, for my party and I this has been a memorable visit, memorable because we have waited a long time to be able to make it, memorable because of the generosity of the reception that we have received here in South Africa, memorable because of the two-way opportunities that we are convinced exists as a result of what we have seen and what we have heard on this visit. I have been struck by the tremendous hope for the future which so many expressed. In all the vast array of words in the English language, hope is the one that one most likes to hear. And there is hope here in South Africa, hope perhaps where there was none some time ago, opportunities where there were fewer, a chance for the future that once did not exist, but does now.

I have heard businessmen and financiers, both South African and British, speaking with optimism about South Africa’s economic prospects. I have discussed those prospects with President Mandela and with his senior political colleagues, I have seen for myself, yesterday in Cape Town, and today here in Johannesburg, how much South Africa has to offer. And I believe that your hope and your optimism is well founded. You can, I believe, be confident about your future. And we in Britain share that confidence.

Last April the elections in South Africa were seen in every part of the world when people watched, as they did, those remarkable elections taking place. Those elections in South Africa were seen as a political miracle, we want to help turn your political miracle into an economic miracle in the future.

The message is clear, South Africa is open for business. And let me say to you, Mr President, Britain’s message is clear too, we are here to do business and we look forward to it.

Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech at Ivory Park Primary School in Tembisa, on 21st September 1994.

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PRIME MINISTER:

I am delighted to be here at Ivory Park today. I would like to thank the Principal, Mr Jonas Lephalala, and his staff and pupils, for making it possible for me to visit your school. I would also like to thank Minister Mufamadi, Premier Sexwale and the PWV members present for accompanying me on this visit. I am grateful to the Community Leaders here today for the insights they have provided into some of the key issues facing your community and others like it throughout South Africa.

This visit has given me a glimpse of how many ordinary South Africans live. You face tremendous challenges, but also I hope, tremendous opportunities. Communities like yours will help build the new South Africa, just as you have built this school, of which you can be proud.

We in Britain are ready to help. Immediately after the election we announced that over the next three years we would provide some R340 million of bilateral aid. Yesterday President Mandela and I signed an agreement covering development co-operation between Britain and South Africa in support of the Reconstruction and Development Programme. That sounds like a good agreement on paper – but what does it mean in practice? What does it mean for you?

It means that we will be working with your Government and with independent organisations to draw up projects to benefit people who have not yet had the kind of advantages that they deserve. We want communities to have better education, improved access to health care, increased opportunities to earn a living, and to be able to live in a secure and peaceful environment.

When he was released from prison, President Mandela set about encouraging the youth of South Africa to return to school. There is enormous human potential in this country. It is your richest resource. Our aid to education is to help you make the most of that resource – improving the quality of maths, science, and English teaching in schools. I hope that the books we have provided to establish the library in this, and other, schools will also help children discover the pleasure of reading and learning.

In health our programme aims to support the development of Primary Health Care provision for all communities, to give ordinary people easy access to basic services.

Local business is the lifeblood of a community. Part of what we can offer is training for individuals in basic work and business skills and advice for people setting up and running businesses in the community. And I am determined to encourage more British business to come to South Africa and to invest here to join the many British companies who are already working with you.

Community development will be successful only if people are able to go about their daily lives safe from violence, crime and intimidation. The peace monitors here today are one example of how local communities in South Africa have actively taken on responsibility for their own safety and security. The South African Peace Structures are unique. They played an invaluable role in the elections. I am glad we were able to provide assistance to them in this.

We are now discussing with your Government how we can give further support to community safety and security. Two British Police Officers are already helping the Ministry of Safety and Security to develop basic level training for new recruits, and to review recruitment procedures. As part of a new initiative, we propose to lend you some of the people who have worked successfully on community policing in Britain. They will be assisting Ms Duarte and her team in developing a strategy for community policing for this Province and helping to set up a similar scheme in Western Cape Province.

Let me end on a lighter note. I spent a marvellous morning at the Alexandra Oval, watching some of Britain’s leading sports-people coaching promising young South Africans. I brought our sports celebrities here to strengthen our sporting ties. One thing that can really bind peoples together is sport. That is why I wanted to mark South Africa’s return to the world sporting community by announcing this morning our plans to carry on these coaching clinics for your young people. And I would like to mark my visit to Ivory Park by presenting the school sports teams with some equipment. I wish you every success with it.

The rest of the world watched your elections with great admiration. I feel very privileged to have been able to come to South Africa so soon after that historical event, and to have had a chance to meet you all. I will go home with fond memories of my visit to your beautiful country. And the sound of your excellent school choir will remain with me for a long time. Thank you.

Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech to a business seminar in Johannesburg on Wednesday 21st September 1994

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PRIME MINISTER:

Firstly, Mr. Director General, I have some good news for you and that is that I am not going to repeat all that I have just said at luncheon [Laughter] I will be very brief. In a few moments, I will ask Tony Nelson to invite the British team to introduce themselves so that everyone is aware of precisely the strength of the delegation that is here.

May I just say that Tony Nelson and I and Lynda Chalker, who is also with me today, are very grateful indeed to the South African Chamber of Business for organising this round table meeting.

Yesterday, the distinguished business group with me met Deputy President Mbeke and Finance Minister Lebemburg[phon] and our businessmen and our scientists indicated a whole range of sectors where they saw prospects for partnership between Britain and South Africa. Deputy President Mbeke in turn assured us that his government’s commitment to the private sector was continuing and of his wish to continue discussions about a range of specific points that were raised by the businessmen. Those discussions are continuing and a detailed response will be available in due course.

This afternoon, it is the turn of the businessmen to speak directly to the businessmen. Despite the impact of politicians and others, that is how business is really done. Business must talk to business and that can happen this afternoon. I hope this meeting that you have this afternoon will be but the first of many.

The second thing I want to say is just to stress the scale of the opportunities. I know that the British business team have a number of things they want to discuss, trade both to and from South Africa, investment, perhaps especially through joint partnerships and the contribution that our business can make to South African reconstruction and development programmes especially through training and infrastructure projects and perhaps crucially important in so many respects – not only economic but far beyond that – the proposals to see what British business can do to help the emerging black business sector.

Finally, Mr. Director-General, I stressed at lunchtime how well the British economy was now performing – steady growth, low inflation, record exports and healthy consumer demand. I know that our team in their turn will be happy to answer South African questions about the opportunities for exports and investment in Britain and in turn I know they will have many questions about the economy here in South Africa. There will be considerable interest also in the prospects of further liberalisation particularly perhaps in the area of tariffs and exchange controls.

I have asked at the end of this discussion this afternoon our team to give me a full report of your discussions and I look forward very much to hearing the outcome and seeing how the Government might be able to play a role in carrying forward that relationship in the future.

What I would like to do now is not take your time for this is an afternoon for you to talk to one another and I will ask Tony Nelson to commence and then introduce himself and invite the British business team to introduce themselves as well and I hope you have a very productive afternoon and after that I think it would be appropriate to ask Julian Ogilvie-Thompson to lead the discussion and then I hope it will follow quite freely from there so I trust you will have a very worthwhile and successful afternoon. [Applause].

Below is the text of Mr Major’s arrival statement in Cape Town, made on Tuesday 20th September 1994.

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PRIME MINISTER:

Mr Deputy President, Mr Premier, Ladies and Gentlemen. I would like to say first what a thrill it is to be here at last and how good it is to meet so many old friends. Only four years ago when I became Prime Minister, very few people would have predicted this moment, that in 1994 a British Prime Minister would set foot in a non-racial democratic South Africa. And yet it has happened. Today we stand at the dawn of a new age for South Africa, a new age when with faith and hope and courage all things are possible.

Norma and I have long wanted to come here. We may not know South Africa but we do know South Africans. As well as you, Mr Deputy President, President Mandela, many other South Africans have been friends of ours and have visited Downing Street in recent years. These are friendships that Norma and I look forward to renewing with very great pleasure.

Your elections earlier this year evoked admiration, emotion, excitement, thousands of miles away in Britain and across the world, they opened a huge opportunity not only for South Africa but for South Africa’s friends.

I am not here alone today but with a large group of those friends – the Minister for Africa, Lynda Chalker, well known to many people in this country; and Tony Nelson, the Minister of State at the Treasury; with captains of industry and of finance; with the President of the Royal Society, Sir Michael Atir, one of our most eminent scientists; and with Sir Peter Newson, a leading educationalist; and I have with me also five sporting Ambassadors whose names will be familiar not only here but throughout the whole of the sports loving world, Sir Colin Cowdrey, Sir Bobby Charlton, Judy Simpson, Alex Stewart, and a recent visitor returning, Rob Andrew, whom I am sure you will remember.

This team represents only a small cross-section of the interests which Britons and South Africans have in common.
I have the privilege later this morning of addressing your Parliament. On that occasion I shall be able to say that we are here to make a new beginning, here to make new friends, and here because in so many areas of life Britons and South Africans have a tremendous amount to offer one another.

For the next three days my party and I are going to spread ourselves across South Africa, we intend to make the best use of every single moment we have. There is work to be done and we long to get on with it.

Thank you for your welcome.