S. Africa uses BRICS membership to lure more U.S. investments

As U.S. President Barack Obama is set to visit South Africa next month, a South African delegation left for the U.S. on Wednesday to seek more investment.

The delegation is led by KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province Premier and the ruling Africa National Congress (ANC) Treasurer, General Zweli Mkhize.

Zweli Mkhize said South Africa's membership of BRICS makes the country and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region a potential investment destination for U.S. businesses.

"We are extending an invitation to the potential investors to consider South Africa and Southern Africa as a whole for investments. Considering that South Africa is now part of the world's biggest socio-political and economic bloc made up of BRICS, we now have endless opportunities," Mkhize said in a statement.

BRICS countries provide a combined market of about 2.9 billion people, he said.

"Therefore, following the successful hosting of the BRICS summit, we have been inviting the international investment community to work with the South African government in particular to access this market," he added.

BRICS is an acronym for the powerful grouping of the world's leading emerging economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. South Africa hosted the 5th BRICS summit in March this year.

Mkhize said the SADC is working together with other African regional bodies including the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the East African Community to form Africa's biggest free trade bloc which will, in turn, create a single continent-wide market estimated to be worth 1 trillion U.S. dollars by 2013.

"These 26 countries have a combined population of 590 million and an aggregate GDP of 860 billion U.S. dollars," he said.

South Africa is currently one of U.S. largest trading partner with 16.8 billion U.S. dollars in two-way trade in 2011.