EMIGRATE? IS THE GRASS GREENER? – Moving from UK – Old Britain Disappears – Greener Pastures – SA-China Ties – China in Africa – BRICS Rising – Letter from South Africa [06-28-25]

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“And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger.” [Revelation 6:8]

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“Letter from South Africa” this month looks at emigrating from South Africa to seek fortunes around the world.  However, it is not all that it’s cracks up to be and is fraught with risks. Going abroad to work and earn good money is always a good idea for younger people but to move permanently is another matter all together.  I hope that readers will find some useful information when preparing for such an adventure

NO NEED TO EMIGRATE – A SELF-MADE ENTREPRENEUR OFFERS POSITIVES FOR SA. Renowned businessman Paul Harris said people who want to leave South Africa for good because they think there is no future in the country should think again. Harris shared his thoughts about South Africa and emigration during an interview with The Relocated South African podcast, hosted by Jan Hugo.

The United Nations’ International Migrant Stock report showed a steady outflow of skilled South Africans over the last thirty years. The UN’s data shows that in 1990, approximately 295,400 South Africans were living internationally. By 2000, it reached 495,000, and by 2010, it rose to 705,000. In 2020, 900,000 South Africans lived abroad, and this number surpassed 1 million in 2024. This translates to an average of 74 people leaving every day between 2020 and 2024.

It has reached such concerning levels that the Allianz Risk Barometer for 2025 showed that the shortage of skilled workers has become one of South Africa’s biggest risks. He is well-positioned to discuss this topic as he previously left South Africa but decided to return and make it his home. “I emigrated. Whatever way you look at it, it takes five years out of your life. Before you go, it is all you think and talk about,” he said.

“When you arrive in the new country, it is a struggle to find where you should live, who you are going to make friends with, and what home you can buy.” People who emigrate typically maintain strong connections with those at home, and they continue to visit South Africa on holidays. He advised people to avoid obsessing about emigrating and instead make the most of their lives in South Africa. However, that does not mean working overseas is not advised. “Going out and getting a more worldly view is important and fantastic. People who want to work overseas should go for it,” he said.

“However, if you are leaving South Africa for good because you do not think there is a future here, you should think again.” South Africa is a great country with excellent opportunities

Paul Harris said that despite the country’s problems, it is one of the greatest countries to live in, offering immense opportunities. He highlighted that South Africa faced numerous challenges in the past, including the Boer War, World Wars, Apartheid, and the transition to democracy.

Despite all these difficult times, the country survived. He added that South Africa faced bigger challenges in the past than it does now. He argued that South Africans are resourceful and aspirational and have solved many of the challenges associated with living in South Africa. This includes private security to protect against crime, private education, and private healthcare to bypass state hospitals.

He admitted that these options are not available to all South Africans and that you need to have sufficient resources to benefit from them. Moving to another country is expensive, careful planning and budgeting is essential. And picking a suitable place is fraught with unknowns. Especially now that the northern hemisphere is in the turmoil of wars of uncertain outcome.

Being far away from the disasters in the North, South Africa offers safe and excellent opportunities with the ability to make a real difference in people’s lives. Paul offered the example of his daughter, who runs a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that helps young children, some 220,000 kids, learning to read. Her network includes 20,000 computers in schools across South Africa, and employs 800 people.

Paul said experiencing the excitement of the kids in townships working on the computers leaves everyone with a tear in their eyes. “South Africa offers opportunities to contribute from a very low base, which means a small thing makes a big difference,” he said. “There is nothing that can replace that for me. An environment where you can make a huge difference.”

Some South Africans complain about the country and its problems. “Forget about that. Get on with it and go and do something,” adding, “I am not saying for one moment that there are not massive frustrations. However, that is part of the path to achieve something.” More to read HERE.

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF MOVING FROM BRITAIN TO SOUTH AFRICA – THE QUALITY OF LIFE IS SO MUCH BETTER

Would you leave the UK for South Africa? 45% of Brits said “YES”. Britain is clearly in decline which I have tracked in my past Letters from Great Britain. The bureaucracy, as in any country, is frustrating in South Africa and vigilance is required, but the country’s natural beauty and affordable cost of living are hard to beat.

Jonny Prince first landed in Cape Town in 2004, at the age of 22, on a one-year study-abroad programme with the University of Edinburgh. He had never set foot on the African continent before, but was completely taken by the moment as he stepped off the plane. He saw a buzzing city surrounded by incredible scenery, from Table Mountain to the Atlantic Ocean.

Something about the positive energy of Cape Town caught him in its web of culture, sun and an outdoor lifestyle. After the year ended, he returned to Edinburgh to complete his economics degree, but knew he would return to Cape Town one day. After hundreds of phone calls and messages a friend, in Cape Town, came up with the idea to start a travel company running gap-year adventures in South Africa for UK students.

He moved back to Cape Town in 2008, when they ran their first trip. The early days were a blur of school talks and dodgy projectors, but the end result was a series of successful three-month overland journeys across South Africa. The business evolved into tailor-made travel, starting with friends and word-of-mouth. Then, in 2014, they co-founded a new travel company, Timbuktu.

South Africa has more than lived up to Jonny’s expectations, and says it is an incredible country. You can hike in the Drakensberg mountains, drive across the Karoo desert, sip world-class wine in the Cape Winelands, and spot lions in Kruger National Park. Cape Town itself is such a great mix of just about everything: mountains, beaches, restaurants, shopping (so his wife tells him!), and bubbling culture.

Prince says South Africa’s diverse landscapes make it an exciting place to live and South Africa has a positive entrepreneurial spirit encompassing amazing talent, especially creatively, and it’s a great place to build a team. The operating costs in South Africa are relatively low, which is a huge advantage in scaling a business, locally and internationally.

The flip side is the tedious bureaucracy. There’s a lot of red tape and restrictions around banking and international payments. There are also very strict labour laws, heavily weighted towards employees, which is great in theory, but it can make it tough to move quickly when you’re trying to grow. The cost of living, compared to the UK, is incredible. You can have an amazing lifestyle without the eye-watering prices of London (especially when it comes to renting property and eating out).

In terms of lifestyle, it really couldn’t be more different to the UK. In South Africa, days revolve around the outdoors, surfing before work, hiking at the weekend, and visiting some of the best restaurants and vineyards in the world. Endless blue skies and sunshine help too!  Of course, there are downsides.

Social inequality and economic issues are prominent but it is also true, not only for the UK, but most of the western world too. There are people who live in relative poverty (14 million in UK) and there are high levels of crime in some areas. Pockets of racial tension do exist, but this is decling rapidly after the country’s apartheid era recedes into the past, as new generations emerge without experience of those horrors from that period.

Safety is probably key for most people and, when you look at the bigger picture across the country, it’s not unjustified. However, it is very location specific. Prince has lived in Cape Town, in various locations, for nearly 20 years and has always felt very safe in most central and coastal suburbs, although learning to be more vigilant, helps to navigate the risky areas.

Being aware of petty crime on the streets means not leaving anything visible in a car, not walking alone at night, and avoiding certain areas. Visas are the less glamorous side of moving to South Africa. An initial visa was relatively straightforward as a study visa linked to the course in Cape Town, but it only allows a year in South Africa. Having started the first travel company, based in the UK with an office in Cape Town, an Intra-Company Transfer work visa, allowed working in South Africa for up to four years, and it was renewed for another four years.

When the Timbuktu company started, based in Cape Town, a Critical Skills visa was issued with the help of an immigration lawyer. Finally, after five years and jumping through hoops, a Permanent Residency permit was granted, which allows living and working in South Africa indefinitely. Navigating the visa landscape can be overwhelming, having become more challenging in recent years, with long wait times and fewer options. Finding a good immigration lawyer/agent early on is a must.

Since moving to Cape Town it feels more international. There has been a huge increase in tourists visiting and working remotely for the lifestyle benefits. There’s an influx of new apartment hotels and Airbnbs along the Atlantic coast. From a business perspective, the number of people starting businesses and investing in the country is high, which is fantastic to see.

There’s also been a shift in the social fabric. Having first arrived, racial tension was much more visible, but now there’s much more integration, collaboration, and progress. There’s still work to do, but the direction feels hopeful. They love living here and it definitely feels like home, particularly since getting married, buying a house in the coastal neighbourhood of Sea Point two years ago, and neither can imagine life without Cape Town.

[From a lightly edited essay by writer Johnny Prince and his wife who live in Cape Town’s Sea Point neighbourhood] His advice for anyone moving to South Africa is to say yes to [almost] everything (within reason!). Be open, be patient, and embrace the adventure. Things like setting up bank accounts and navigating paperwork can take longer, but the rewards and lifestyle far outweigh any of these frustrations. If you come with an open heart and a flexible mindset, you’ll discover a country bursting with natural beauty, creative energy, and a lifestyle [that’s very] hard to beat.

NB: How to move to South Africa. Immigration lawyer Nora Dawud, founder of Cape Town-based Black Pen Immigration, breaks down some common visa options for British citizens. Source

NEWS FLASH – ALL IS NOT AS IT WAS IN THE BRITAIN OF YESTERYEAR. For those looking to ‘the bucks’ to be earned in UK, take note of this article by Lord David Frost in the Telegraph. We seem to live in an era when edge-of-the-cliff warnings proliferate. The BBC has the usual [New Zero] climate Armageddon story, this time ‘Three years left to limit warming to 1.5°C‘, but for Frost the end is more of an existential one and imminent for the Britain we have known. He looks back over the changes of the last three decades and wonders how astonished we would have thought back then had we been able to see into the future:

  • That we would have ignored the well-known fact of the mass gang rape of young girls across British cities for decades;
  • That the British state would be unable to build a railway line between London and Birmingham and would spend nearly £100 billion proving it;
  • That Parliament would allow women to kill their unborn baby at any point without committing any crime.

You might have said in response that surely there must have been a massive change in the demographic, cultural, practical and indeed moral characteristics of Britain to make this possible. You might have said “That doesn’t sound like the same country I live in now” What we are living through today, in a phrase, is an unprecedented break in national continuity. As a country, we are disconnecting from the old Britain. The Britain of our national story is disappearing.

He blames in part the mass migration of the last 10-20 years, transforming London into a foreign city. But, more important he argues, is the rise of secular progressivism that has “turbo-charged into aggressive wokeism, with its belief that the historical past is irrelevant and probably actively immoral, and its determination to produce heaven on earth by releasing people from one inherited constraint after another, including finally those of biology itself”.

Is Britain really on the edge of a precipice? If so, the extent of the change is so deep it is hard to imagine how anyone now can reverse it. Or perhaps the truth is every age is condemned to watching the debris of paradise being washed down the river of no return. One thing is certain though. Boris Johnson was wide of the mark when he made his statement to the Commons on July 25, 2019 (the day after David Frost was appointed his Europe Adviser and Chief Negotiator for Exiting the European Union), announcing: “We will be able to look back on this period, this extraordinary period, as the beginning of a new golden age for our United Kingdom.” He was right about it being extraordinary though. Source

HOWEVER, IT IS UNDERSTANDABLE THAT SOME SOUTH AFRICANS ARE KEEN TO TASTE GREENER PASTURES

Some South Africans are facing financial distress. Despite those under 24 accounting for roughly 20% of new credit entrants in recent months, hundreds of thousands remain excluded. These so-called “thin file” clients have little or no credit history, locking them out of a wide range of opportunities. A credit score serves as the gateway not only to lending products and favourable terms, but also to essential services across multiple sectors,

A healthy credit profile enables access to cell phone contracts, rental agreements, and can even influence employment opportunities. Even among those who can access credit, performance is often poor. Around half of young borrowers default early, and many never recover a healthy credit rating. ‘Eighty20’ noted that this limits their future borrowing capacity and ability to participate in key aspects of adult life.

There is a need for better financial education and earlier intervention. Those in distress need to get into debt counselling early. Education is critical if we want to stop this cycle. The root of the problem is South Africa’s youth (un)employment crisis. According to Harambee’s Breaking Barriers report, around one million young people enter the labour market annually, but only 40% find work within a reasonable timeframe.

Another 30% cycle in and out of informal or precarious employment. 20% want to work but never find opportunities. And the final 10% stop looking altogether. For those lucky enough to have jobs, one source of relief has been to use a side hustle. According to BrandMapp, which surveys South African households earning over R10,000 per month, the proportion of people with no side income has dropped from 55% in 2021 to 49% today.

The side hustle economy has exploded into areas such as freelancing (graphic design, writing, web development), e-commerce, drop shipping, delivery and ride-share services, online tutoring, and content creation. These ventures have become critical for young South Africans struggling to stay afloat. International trends reflect a similar shift, with about 50% of millennials and 46% of Gen Z globally now reporting having side hustles.

It’s a sad reflection on the Western model of a failed capitalist system for all but a fraction of the 20% who appear to be prospering. It is unlikely for any aspiring Gen Z or Millennial to succeed by jumping abroad, even if they could finance the move and setting-up costs in a foreign country. Wise council dictates that it’s better to stay where familiar places and family support provides at least a sure base from which to find opportunities which others may not have considered. Source

STOP PRESS – SOUTH AFRICA AND CHINA DEEPEN TIES With $51 Billion Commitment And Strategic Partnership Upgrade During State Visit

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is in China for his second state visit, along with his participation in the Summit of The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) this week. This visit underscores a deepening of bilateral relations, focusing on trade negotiations, political alignment, and strategic financial cooperation, signaling a strengthening of both political and economic ties between the two nations.

Since the formalisation of diplomatic relations in 1998, the partnership between South Africa and China has grown significantly. The cooperation has expanded year-on-year, not only in trade and investment but also through broader strategic initiatives, such as their mutual membership in the BRICS bloc. China is South Africa’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching almost $40 billion in 2023. Source

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK – CHINA – A QUIET GRIP ON AFRICA?

Africa, a continent rich in resources and resilience, is a mostly silent battleground in a geopolitical contest. While global attention fixates on the Middle East, Ukraine, or Taiwan, China, under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is reshaping Africa’s future through loans, infrastructure, and control of critical minerals. This isn’t just Africa’s story—it’s a test case for a global model that trades sovereignty for dependency.

European colonial powers plundered resources and drew arbitrary borders, leaving deep wounds. Post-independence in the 1960s, Cold War rivalries destabilised Africa. From the 1980s to 2000s, Western aid dwindled as conflicts like Rwanda’s genocide raged, sidelining Africa. This vacuum enabled China’s rise, starting with the 2000 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), offering loans without Western-style conditions. The CCP’s playbook includes loans, contracts for Chinese firms using Chinese labor, access to resources, surveillance-enabled digital infrastructure, and elite capture through lucrative deals for political allies.

Africa’s critical minerals are central to this strategy. The DRC produces 80% of global cobalt, with Chinese firms controlling 72% of its mines. And South Africa produces around 70% of global platinium. Source

NARRATIVE BATTLE – The revamped Primakov triangle and the Empire war is fundamentally a war against BRICS

The tenor of the discussions at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) last week was positive and defiant. Virtually the whole Global South was in St. Petersburg; at least 15,000 people. Over a thousand deals were signed, amounting to over $80 billion, according to Executive Secretary of the SPIEF Organizing Committee Anton Kobakov.

At the plenary session, the Global South and BRICS were fully represented: Russia, China, Indonesia (President Prabowo was the guest of honor), South Africa, Bahrain. President Putin cut to the chase: “Russia and China aren’t shaping the new world order – it’s rising naturally, like the sun. We’re only paving the way to make it more balanced.” Source

COMING NEXT:

  • BOOM’s Weekly Global Review Sunday, June 29, 2025 (Now on BOOM’s (Substack)
  • The Financial Jigsaw Part 2 (49) – – Saturday, July 5, 2025

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