AS things stand now, virtually no investment is coming into SA. If the ANC (and COSATU) wish to know why overseas investors fight shy of entering this market, they might care to study a document prepared for his principals by an Austrian executive sent here to report on the possibility of opening a plant in the Vaal Triangle. Points made:

**SA industry is today in bondage to the coercive powers of the trade unions. The SA worker gives his loyalty to the trade union, not the country. His philosophy is one of entitlement, not obligation. That is probably unique in today’s industrial world.

**In Asia, suffering a similar economic debacle, workers and management join forces to work hard and increase production at lowered cost, in the interests of the country, the company and their mutual interest. In SA it is the reverse. Even now, workers engage in mass strike action for increased wages and still further featherbedding.

**No other industrial country in the world grants leave conditions such as are applicable in SA. These allow for 20 working days + (12-14 public holidays) plus 12 days sick leave, which most workers routinely take = nine weeks leave per year. Even developed industrial nations could not afford such leave privileges. Those requirements are so onerous that the exporter starts off with a major handicap.

**Wage rates are excessively high compared with Asian markets, particularly mainland China. Chinese workers earn between US$1 and $2 a day, working a ten-hour, six day week, 60 hours in all. Against such levels it is impossible for SA manufacturers to be competitive.

**SA industry has one of the lowest productivity profiles in the world. Adding to industrial incompetence and unsuccess is that it is now virtually impossible to fire or discipline a lazy, incompetent or insubordinate worker for any reason whatsoever.

**Four major labour relations acts, all highly restrictive, have been legislated by the present government. Nowhere else in the world is there a formula brought forward whereby you are forced to employ specified numbers of males, females, in-betweens and disabled, not to mention these again being broken up into strict racial quotas. That is the very antithesis of a free enterprise market, which is the only one which can function profitably when ability and not other criteria are overriding.

**Worker attitudes must be changed but as can be gauged the SA Government itself is at best a lukewarm friend of business and the free market. Many of its labour and market policies leave much to be desired.

**A favourite political slogan is "Growth through Redistribution," itself illustrative of economic illiteracy.

**Being situated far from the main industrial states of the world adds further to the costs of export freight, including carriage from the interior to the coast, then overseas, plus packing and insurance costs.

**The SA market is shrinking because of a policy of liberalisation of imports and the free export of raw materials without beneficiation.

**The conclusion is that SA is not an attractive place to invest. It has an unhealthy social and business environment and the economy is driven by political necessity which flies in the face of reality. Particularly striking is the general unwillingness to come to terms with the facts.

**These factors bring with them a high risk business environment and brings the question: "Why should we increase our investment at this particular stage in such an economy?"

**With the aggravated crime situation, general lawlessness and racial overtones, "SA is far less attractive than most of Asia: and we all know the problems they have."

**"The argument that SA can be the key to Africa is in my opinion totally fallacious as the rest of Southern Africa is impoverished and needs very little."