STATEMENT BY THE RT HON PRIME MINISTER
DR B.S.S.DLAMINI
DURING THE VISIT BY STANDARD BANK GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE
AT THE CABINET OFFICES
MONDAY 29 JUNE 2015
Honourable Ministers
Group Chief Executive of Standard Bank, Mr Simpiwe Shabalala
Chief Executive of Standard Bank Swaziland, Mr Phil Mnisi
Representatives of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen
May I say, Mr Shabalala, how delighted I am to welcome you to my Offices and, indeed, to Swaziland. Standard Bank is the largest commercial bank in Swaziland and, indeed, measured by assets alone, is the largest bank not only in South Africa but the entire African continent. It is an honour and a pleasure to have the opportunity to meet with you today and share thoughts and experiences.
I believe that Government and the financial sector need to stay very close to one another in terms of information sharing and policy development. The financial sector is a crucially important sector of our economy. Today we are talking especially about the segment that is the banking sector. From a Government perspective, carrying the responsibility for providing a business environment that is conducive to fast economic growth, we need to have a strong reciprocal relationship with the banking sector – it needs to have confidence in us and we need to have confidence in the quality of its operations.
The banking sector facilitates the efficient processing of financial transactions, and motivates and enables the safe depositing and saving of money by individuals and corporations. In turn, it becomes the means by which individuals and companies can access and borrow money for commercial transactions and personal purposes. It also has to move swiftly with the times and I must add that the speed with which the banks have adapted, to embrace the quite extraordinary benefits of the Internet and mobile devices, confirms the dynamic quality of the sector.
And the banking sector needs to have confidence in Government. There is no better measure of this than the extent to which the banks invest in our economy, which of course includes the strength of its enthusiasm for Government bonds, these being a primary source of public sector borrowing. I was very pleased to learn of the robust bid by our commercial banks for the latest Three Year Government Bond issue which was substantially over-subscribed.
Whilst our banking sector clearly exhibits the skills required to implement banking operations in an efficient and secure manner, its effectiveness in the promotion of economic growth is heavily influenced by the competitiveness of its services. The more rapid rate of economic growth, that our country needs, is hugely dependent on the development of our small, medium and micro-scale enterprises (SMME) sector. One of that sector’s critical requirements is access to affordable finance which not only talks to a creative and pragmatic approach to bank lending strategy but also to interest rate levels and the charges raised on transactions.
In this regard, we therefore look forward, in the coming days and weeks, to seeing a much closer collaboration between the respective agencies on the Government side - Ministries, the Investor Road Map Unit and the Swaziland Investment Promotion Authority (SIPA) – and representatives of the banking sector, to identify a strategy that puts ticks in the right boxes, so to speak.
It has been a great pleasure to meet and greet you, Mr Shabalala, and we look forward to your guiding influence on your Bank’s Swaziland operations, playing its part in strengthening the partnership between stakeholders, all of whom have much to gain from a stronger economy and enabling more people to initiate sustainable livelihoods.
Thank you.