With the recent events that have taken place in the country, this has unsettled many business owners, potential foreign business owners and investors alike. It has become apparent that if you are running a business in SA without a valid visa, as a foreign businessperson, you are at higher risk of losing a whole lot more than just the investment you have made.
Not having a valid business visa for an established businessperson or one intending to invest/operate a business in South Africa, can be very limiting, frustrating, and hinder the success of any business. A foreign national without the relevant visa and operating in SA:
- Cannot independently run a business or invest in a business
- May resort to the use of third parties as fronts to get operations going,
- Cannot obtain long-term loans, purchase equipment or machinery for the business
- Cannot comply with statutory regulations which negatively impact the business
- Is at a high risk of loss of investments and profits made
The fear of being unable to run their own businesses independently and the risk of losing their investments or being bought out of the business is very real for foreign business owners, without a business visa that allows them to run their businesses legitimately and successfully in South Africa.
If anything at all, the recent events have taught us that as foreigners doing business in SA, one needs to ensure that their documentation is in order, and they can legitimately run their business and should disasters happen, they have legal grounds to stand on to pick up the pieces and continue with their business because, despite all this, South Africa still remains one of the best economies in Africa to do business and invest.
Doing business in SA has enormous benefits:
- SA is one of the most sophisticated emerging markets in the world.
- The unique combination of well-developed first-world financial markets, and a rapidly emerging market economy, has risen to an entrepreneurial and dynamic investment environment with many global competitive advantages and opportunities.
- There are various incentive schemes to stimulate and facilitate the development of sustainable, competitive enterprises.
- Despite being more than 20 years post-democracy, SA is still new to a lot of things that have been huge successes in the rest of the world thereby giving foreign investors the chance to seize the opportunity. If they can invest in new products and services, they can capture a whole new market which will be beneficial for them.
- Indexes such as the world economic forum global competitiveness report, as well as the World Bank ease of doing business index all highlight that South Africa is an extremely suitable place to conduct business in.
- South Africa is a very attractive trade partner.
- The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) is ranked among the top 20 of the world’s best stock exchanges by market capitalization. It is governed by world-class regulation, trading, clearing, settlement assurance, and risk management. One of the most prominent factors of the JSE is the amazing investor protection it offers.
- The ease of doing business in SA is considerably higher than other powerhouse countries such as India, China, Brazil or even Russia. Anyone looking to do businesses in this country will find all the legal requirements very straight forward and there is no complex procedure to kick-starting one’s company.
- SA has a very impressive infrastructure, starting with a sophisticated banking sector, a futuristic transport network, as well as an extensively available energy sector.
We have a client, X (real name withheld for id protection). He previously held a business visa, and due to the complex nature of acquiring this visa, which can be truly daunting if you do not have the proper knowledge and guidance on how to go about it, he could not renew his visa. Not having a valid business visa has negatively impacted him in that he cannot run operations anymore because of lack of compliance with statutory obligations, he cannot even access his own personal finances without a valid visa.
We are now assisting him to obtain a valid business visa so that he can resume operations and be able to access his personal funds in SA. He has also realised the loss he has suffered from not being able to operate without a valid business visa and that SA is still a lucrative environment to conduct his business.
If you are like X, where you find yourself in a situation where you are operating a business in SA without a valid visa and would like to regularise your operations and stay in SA, or you would like to start a business or invest in one, please do contact us for a quick free assessment by clicking on the link below and one of our Consultants will call you.
