National Bureau of Economic Research

• Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson opened the Unexpected Connections: Catalyzing the Creative Economy conference by touting the Launch Beach: 100 Startups Campaign and thanking Sunstone Management, Inc., and Imprint Venture Lab for partnering with the city for the initiative.
• Unexpected Connections was put on Thursday, Oct. 5, by Intertrend Communications and its nonprofit affiliate, Creative Class Collective, with sponsorship from the Long Beach Economic Partnership and Sunstone Management, Inc., along with others.
• And Imprint Venture Lab is leading the way, managing the first $5 million to support creative startups.
• Architecture and entertainment are the two largest sectors of the creative industry in Long Beach at 43% each.

• This has resulted in an incorrect understanding of the real progress made to correct the racial distribution of farm land ownership in South Africa.
• In 2012 the National Development Plan set a target to redistribute (or restore) 30% (or 23.7 million hectares) of all freehold agricultural land to black South Africans by 2030.
• The general perception is that the land reform programme has failed to deliver a recognisable shift in ownership patterns.
• I have also identified steps that the government should take to fix the problems.

Land acquisition

• Since then, by our calculations, the total area of land rights transferred away from white ownership – either to the state or black beneficiaries – or where financial compensation has been made, is equal to 19,165,891 ha.
• This is equivalent to 24.7% of all freehold agricultural land.
• Although the number may look heartening, given that it is close to the 30% target set out in the National Development Plan, the issue of concern is that the state is now a major owner of agricultural land (more than 2.5 million hectares).

Flawed design

• Through the scheme the land is then held by the state for the use by lessees of the programme.
• By June 2023, the state had acquired 2.5 million hectares of productive farmland through the programme.
• Most of the roughly 2500 beneficiaries have a 30-year lease agreement with the state.
• It's not gone well

  I have gained further insights in conversations with farmers currently leasing land from the State.

Major obstacles

• This makes it difficult – or impossible – to invest in the land or secure loans for improvements and growth.
• Beneficiaries have to rely on government grants to do business.
• Farmers have limited credit history, collateral or access to formal financial institutions because of the nature of the lease arrangement.

Action that needs to be taken

• Firstly, the government should transfer the asset to an institution with a vested interest and capacity to provide both oversight and finance.
• Fifth, the purchase price (pegged value minus lease amounts paid) should be financed over 25 years at a preferential interest rate.
• Seventh, put a moratorium on the allowed window of reselling the farm to 10 years and let government have the first right of refusal.

• Additionally, the energy sector has experienced a surge in new orders, particularly for clean energy equipment, with the offshore engineering business boasting a full order book and rapid capacity expansion.
• As a leading enterprise in the container industry, CIMC always keeps a close eye on this trend and is constantly conducting research.
• Benefiting from the growth of the electrochemical energy storage market, CIMC's container energy storage business continued to develop rapidly in 2022, reaching new revenue highs.
• Moreover, CIMC Group has actively entered overseas markets in the energy storage sector and established a strategic joint venture with POWIN Energy, a leading international energy storage integrator and manufacturer.