Co-authored by Simone Claar

While we were attending the 1st AADUN-AFRASO conference from 11th to 14th March 2014 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, we took the opportunity to explore the city on the fringe of the scheduled conference programme and noticed that a variety of South African products were available on the market. This included the usual selection of South African wines but also extended to such condiments as Mama Africa’s or Ina Paarman’s condiments stocked in the local supermarket. Yet, more surprisingly, we also discovered a couple of Nando’s restaurants in some of the most prominent spots of the city: one, for example, could be found in the Times Square Mall and another bordered on Chinatown.

Strolling along the beach front of Durban’s Central Business District with its mixture of modern high-rises and colonial-era buildings one can easily understand why South Africa chose the city for hosting the 5th BRICS Summit in March 2013: The modern hotels, conference centers and boulevards represent the South Africa Pretoria wanted to show the Brazilian, Russian, Indian and Chinese heads of state. After all, South Africa is under some pressure to justify its entry into the exclusive grouping in 2010, since in terms of GDP and domestic market it hardly lives up to the other four countries.