JOHANNESBURG (AP) - South Africa's president announced ambitious infrastructure projects Thursday, laying out his plans for creating jobs and hope in nation harder hit than most in Africa by global recession.

"The massive investment in infrastructure must leave more than
just power stations, rail lines, dams and roads," Zuma said in his
nationally televised state of the nation address to parliament in
Cape Town. "It must industrialize the country, generate skills and
boost much needed job creation."

His plan spanned the country, from a dam in the southwestern
homeland of former President Nelson Mandela to a rail and road
network and new water systems to boost prospects for mining in
Limpopo, a province in the far northeast that is among the nation's
poorest and often pointed to as among the most corrupt.

Zuma's finance minister may offer details in a budget speech
later this month. Zuma did not say Thursday how much the entire
program would cost or when all its components would be completed.
He did say 300 million rand ($40 million) would be spent to build
new universities in the provinces of Mpumalanga in the east and
Northern Cape in the west. He also said Transnet, the state-owned
transportation company, would invest 300 billion rand ($40 billion)
in capital projects over the next seven years.

Zuma's focus on infrastructure development was applauded by
opposition politicians, but they questioned whether he could or
would follow through on his pledges.

"Where the finance minister is going to find all the money to
finance all these promises is a mystery," said Lindiwe Mazibuko,
parliamentary leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance
party.

Zuma was elected in 2009 to a five-year term, taking office just
as the global recession hit South Africa, which is sub-Saharan
Africa's biggest economy but has been burdened by high rates of
poverty, unemployment and inequality despite years of buoyant
growth. Across Africa, the recession had been delayed, leading many
to initially think Africa would be spared.

Zuma was applauded during his speech when he mentioned
unemployment figures of 23.9 percent released earlier in the week.
The figure, for the end of 2011, would spark panic in the West, but
represented the biggest growth in employment for South Africa since
its 2009 recession. Government statisticians said that 365,000 more
South Africans were working in the fourth quarter of 2011 than in
the fourth quarter of the previous year.

Zuma's African National Congress party in 2010 set itself a
daunting target of creating 5 million jobs by 2020. But its own
finance minister has estimated that would require growth of over 6
percent a year. South Africa has been and is predicted to continue
to be well short of that, in part because of the global recession.

Zuma spoke hours after Greece struck a deal to make deep cuts in
government jobs and spending to help ward off a default, and
perhaps calm the economic storms that have buffeted Europe. While
the immediate danger appears to have passed, the future for Greece
and the rest of Europe remains uncertain.

Europe is the second biggest market for South African exports,
after China.

South Africa has not only sub-Saharan Africa's largest economy,
but its most developed infrastructure and most skilled work force,
Ajen Sita, chief executive officer for Africa for Ernst & Young,
told reporters recently. That has made South Africa more attractive
to Europe than other African countries, so Europe's troubles have
hit South Africa harder, Sita said. South Africa exports not just
minerals, but cars and car components, clothing and agricultural
products.

Across Africa, Ernst & Young expects GDP to grow between 4 and 5
percent in 2012, compared to 2.7 percent for South Africa. In
either case, the prediction is rosier than a growth rate of close
to zero expected for Europe.

Europe is experiencing "a crisis of low growth and no jobs,"
said Mthuli Ncube, chief economist of the African Development Bank.

In an interview, Ncube credited fewer wars and more elections in
Africa for the continent's resiliency amid a serious worldwide
slowdown. He also pointed to painful economic reforms imposed on
African governments in the 1980s and 1990s. Now, Ncube said, reform is being forced on European governments, such as the fiscal
austerity plan for Greece mandated by the European Union, the
European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Greeks
have regularly and sometimes violently protested austerity
measures, and voters will get a chance to have their say in an
election expected in the next few months.

Sita, of Ernst & Young, urged South Africa to work harder on
developing markets in and attracting investment from Asia and other
developing regions to counteract the impact of crisis in Europe. He
also said South Africa needed to ensure it remained competitive, by
investing in building its infrastructure and training its work
force and by tackling corruption.

"We can't rest, because we are in a competitive world," the
Johannesburg-based Sita said.

Earlier this week, South Africa's Industrial Development
Corporation said South Africa's performance has global
implications.

"It has now fallen on the emerging and other developing
economies to sustain the world's growth momentum, since a
contraction is forecast in the eurozone, while the USA and Japan
are expected to record only modest growth," Jorge Maia, head of
research for the corporation, said in a statement accompanying a
report focusing on South Africa's key mining sector.

Maia, saying South Africa was lagging behind other countries in
getting minerals out of the ground, called for "significantly
higher levels of investment, supported by major improvements in the
energy and transportation infrastructure."