South Africa’s Infrastructure Fund to Target Private Investment
South Africa’s Infrastructure Fund to Target Private Investment
South Africa’s 100 billion-rand ($5.9 billion) infrastructure fund will offer a range of instruments to attract private investors, the head of the presidency’s Investment and Infrastructure Office said.
The office will work with fund managers, commercial banks and development institutions to overhaul traditional project-finance structures, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said Wednesday in a presentation to South Africa’s Actuarial Society. Projects will be funded through debt markets, blended financing and, as a last resort, the public purse, he said.
Instruments being discussed with the Treasury include project bonds, CPI-linked debt instruments and green finance.
“We are confident that, by the beginning of the next financial year, all of these instruments will be in place,” Ramokgopa said.
The Development Bank of Southern Africa earlier this month signed a memorandum of understanding to establish and manage the infrastructure fund.
The fund seeks to “derisk the projects,” he said. “We should be in a position to crowd-in private sector players.”
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