SA a "top emerging market investment target" for international investors

South Africa will be on the receiving end of large capital inflows in the months and years ahead, predicts Ian Heron, chairman of Johannesburg-based Vantage Mezzanine Funds investment committee.

Addressing a Vantage Investor Conference in Johannesburg yesterday (Wednesday), Heron maintained that South Africa was among the world's most attractive emerging markets investor destination.

"Among our investment attractions are that we are in a unique position to benefit from the infrastructure spend that is gaining momentum not only in South Africa but in the entire African continent."

Other attractions included:

* The benefits that would flow from the pending trading bloc comprising South Africa, Brazil, India and China;

* A First World banking, legal, communications and business infrastructure; and

* Real interest rates that were among the worlds highest.

"China might be the glamour emerging market for the present. But the legal structure there is totally alien to the western investor, as is the language and the manner in which business is conducted. South Africa is surely a better investment proposition."