According to recent reports, wages in the productive (mostly coastal) regions of China have climbed to $500pm.

That is about R4,500pm versus the South African minimum wage of approx. R1,600pm.

We can safely discount legislated minimum labour costs as a disadvantage for South Africa over China. To me at least, that is cause for optimism…

PS: To be clear, I’m not saying wages are lower in SA than in China. I’m saying that the oft-mentioned government legislated minimum wage is not a factor. This is good news in that it eliminates one of the biggest challenges to becoming competitive in the global economy.