Middle East sovereign wealth funds, backed by trillions of dollars in assets, have advised South Africa to create a fundraising vehicle as part of a plan to establish a new state firm to manage its R155 billion property portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Authorities in Africa\u2019s biggest economy recently held discussions with Johannesburg\u2019s stock exchange about setting up a development fund to raise money for projects, after seeking advice from sovereign wealth funds in the Gulf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson said this in a Bloomberg TV interview. He didn\u2019t identify them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Cyril Ramaphosa first announced the establishment of the South African National Property Company, which will oversee 88,000 buildings and 5 million hectares of land, in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa has courted Gulf wealth funds and asset managers in recent years to help fund its development plans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The nation needs about R1.6 trillion in public-sector investment and an additional R3.2 trillion from private companies to meet its infrastructure targets by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officials are focused on boosting construction to revive a sluggish economy and to restore public finances after years of corruption, mismanagement and bailouts of struggling state-owned companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe know that government cannot fund the entire infrastructure pipeline itself,\u201d Macpherson said from Dubai, where he is due to meet potential investors this week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cExternal funding is going to be important and we know that there\u2019s a big appetite within the Middle East to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa remains committed to opening an office for its infrastructure development agency in the Middle East despite the US-Iran war, the minister said, adding that it’s important for the country to have a presence in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The outpost would most likely be in Dubai, with the country aiming to set it up \u201csooner rather than later,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The agency, Infrastructure South Africa, last year presented investment opportunities across energy, water and logistics to wealth funds, state entities and government ministries in the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The nation has a R350 billion construction book and expects procurement and construction for projects to start in the next 12 to 18 months, Macpherson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Middle East wealth funds have advised South Africa to create a fundraising vehicle as part of its National Property Company plans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":818844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2102651187099062556","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2213807899439609","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18106424699056912","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[20230,1891,26611],"class_list":["post-876733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-dean-macpherson","tag-middle-east","tag-national-property-company"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876733"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":876741,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876733\/revisions\/876741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}