Zuma: South Africa has made “good returns” on World Cup investment 08/07/2010 |
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South African president Jacob Zuma says the country has made “good returns” on the billions of rand it spent on hosting Africa’s first football World Cup.
The Treasury has previously predicted the one-month tournament would add 0.4 percentage points to GDP this year, with a lasting positive effect seen on the economy through infrastructure development, investment and tourism, reports Reuters.
It is too early to quantify the exact financial benefit to South Africa of hosting the event, but Zuma said: "We can safely say that we have good returns on our investment, which includes 33 billion rand ($4.28 billion) spent on transport infrastructure, telecommunications and stadiums.”
South Africa had slashed an initial estimate of 450,000 foreign visitors after the global downturn and foreign media reports about violent crime caused sluggish sales of World Cup tickets outside the country.
But organisers said they were still confident of meeting that initial target, even though only 200,000 foreign fans were estimated to have arrived during the first three weeks of the tournament.
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