South African President Jacob Zuma on Thursday called on businesses and labors to urgently find solutions to current ongoing strikes.

The president told the Black Business Council Summit in Johannesburg that the strikes in the mining and transport sectors are hurting the economy.

"As of mid-September, the National Treasury estimated that the total rand value of production lost in platinum and gold mining sectors had been roughly 519 million US dollars, while 14 million US dollars was lost in coal," President Zuma said.

A violent strike at the Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine in the North West province ended after the death of 44 people in August.

About 75,000 miners have since gone on strikes in different mines around the country, demanding better salaries and improved working conditions.

In mid-September close to 20,000 truck drivers and other workers in the freight sector embarked on a country-wide strikes, demanding better wages.

The South African Municipal Workers' Union recently announced the strikes could include most of its 190,000 members.

President Zuma warned the strikes have turned violent and led to injury to people and damage to property.

"The destruction of property and assaulting of people during strikes are not acceptable. We should discourage such activities, and they are not good for the country," he said.

Zuma was concerned that this could have devastating consequences for the economy.

"Our economic data does not indicate a significant drop in business confidence yet since the strikes and the global economic decline, but our responsibility is to ensure that we do not reach a crisis point," Zuma said.

He expressed worries that the continued strikes can lower foreign investment. "We need to deal with the wrong perceptions about our country or the economy locally and abroad," he said.

The South African government is taking measures to improve the economic outlook, he added.



Zuma said the country's economic growth was also being affected by the economic crisis in the euro zone.

"We must seize the moment now and promote manufacturing as the backbone of our industrialization drive for sustained economic growth," he said.

He called on all parties to the labor disputes to redouble their efforts in order to find amicable solutions, saying "we must get the economy back to full steam and create the jobs that our people so desperately need."