Economic reforms in South Africa and growth across the African continent are creating opportunities for deeper trade and investment partnerships with Japan, speakers at the Standard Bank and Mizuho Africa & Japan Investment Forum 2026 have highlighted.

The forum was held at financial services company Standard Bank’s head office, in Johannesburg, on November 11.

During a panel discussion, Standard Bank Group chief economist and research head Goolam Ballim, industry organisation Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) Africa executive director Shintaro Matoba and Presidency Project Management Office (PMO) head Rudi Dicks discussed the reforms, partnerships and investment opportunities that could strengthen economic relations between Africa and Japan.

Matoba said Japanese companies operating in South Africa were increasingly benefiting from opportunities across the wider continent, positioning the country as an important regional gateway.

He noted that nearly 80% of Japanese companies operating in South Africa reported profitability, despite the country's comparatively subdued economic growth.

“For Japanese businesses, Africa has become a profitable market, one that has continued to grow over the last five years. South Africa is playing a very important role as a hub in the [Southern African] region and the whole continent,” Matoba noted.

He added that opportunities were extending beyond traditional large-scale infrastructure and energy investments into consumer-facing industries, including food, beverages and everyday products, as population growth and rising consumption expanded African markets.

Ballim highlighted the importance of South Africa's reform agenda in improving the investment environment, particularly with efforts to address electricity and logistics constraints, while increasingly focusing on municipal governance and service delivery.

“Operation Vulindlela has evolved to embrace a new set of circumstances, a new set of priorities and municipalities is one of them. Municipalities speaks to rule of law, it speaks to aggregate governance and it speaks to society’s guardrails. It is a facilitation endeavour for businesses to be able to take risks.

“The rule of law and aggregate governance is nothing more than to enhance predictability and to increase efficiency,” he said.

Ballim added that meaningful improvements in municipal service delivery over the next 24 months could help support the country’s ambition of achieving economic growth of between 2% and 3% by the end of the decade.

Meanwhile, Dicks emphasised the importance of partnerships between government and the private sector in mobilising investment towards infrastructure development, while ensuring that economic growth also delivered social and developmental benefits.

He noted the potential for public-private partnerships to support infrastructure development while addressing social imperatives.

“You can make a concession with the social responsibility and I think it's quite important and incumbent on us to be able to do that,” Dicks said.

The discussion also highlighted opportunities for Japanese investment in South Africa's ports, rail, energy and water infrastructure, alongside the importance of credible financial institutions and partnerships in facilitating access to African markets.

Dicks said the collaboration between Standard Bank and financial services firm Mizuho could provide investors with greater confidence when entering unfamiliar markets, while Ballim underscored the potential for private-sector participation to help address Africa's infrastructure financing requirements.

Matoba concluded that sustained government-to-government and private-sector partnerships, alongside stronger people-to-people relationships, would be important in managing investment risks and deepening the economic cooperation between Japan, South Africa and the broader continent.