South Africa is introducing reforms to its strict visa regime to bring in more skilled workers and tourists, Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber said, signalling a shift away from past immigration policies that critics have labelled xenophobic. 

The immediate changes will include a new points-based system for work visas that makes eligibility automatic if you have certain qualifications, and the launch of a remote work visa, both of which he said should be finalised in "a matter of days".

"Visa reform to attract tourists, to attract capital, to attract skills are some of the most powerful things we can do in the short term to kickstart economic growth," Schreiber told Reuters in an interview.

As it stands, foreigners with job offers in South Africa can wait months or years for a visa and are sometimes denied for unexplained reasons. 

Western tourists usually obtain visas easily on arrival but visitors from China and India, both potentially lucrative markets, have to submit off-putting paperwork.

The country has a reputation for being especially unfriendly to immigrants from other African countries, who are sometimes accused of 'stealing' jobs in a context in which a third of South Africans are unemployed.

"It's a false dichotomy to suggest that we cannot grow the economy and at the same time combat xenophobia," Schreiber said, adding that bringing in skilled foreigners can help create jobs. 

Schreiber is a member of the Democratic Alliance party, which was the official opposition until it joined the African National Congress in a coalition government this year. Both parties were criticised by rights campaigners for anti-immigrant sentiment in their election manifestos.

Schreiber called the current system a "catastrophic failure" that keeps out the kind of people South Africa needs. 

When he took office in July, South Africa had a backlog of 306 000 visas that had been accumulating for over a decade, he said. His team has now made it through 62% of those by bringing in reinforcements and working overtime, he said.

"The lack of skills in the economy is actually the second biggest impediment to economic growth and job creation (after power cuts)," he said, citing research by the National Treasury. 

He is planning to digitise the paper-based visa system within five years to reduce the potential for fraud and bias by case workers and speed up processing, although he acknowledged there could be budget constraints.