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Sep 23, 2008:
Despite a near or full-blown recession in large parts of the world, things may actually be looking up for South Africa due to a wealth of unique opportunities, especially in industrial property.
Commercial and industrial expert Warren Jack shares his insight.
I recently read a thought provoking interview with Clem Sunter, chairman of the Anglo American Chairman's Fund and scenario specialist, on Moneyweb. According to him South Africa might just be the perfect place to sit out the global recession.
Sunter says it's a time when nations have to choose their economic spaces. For instance, he says, China has invaded the manufacturing space, America had to move up into the high-tech space and Britain has chosen the financial space.
He identifies three major spaces for South Africa, which he calls the resource, tourism and gateway spaces.
We already have the resource space and he believes the tourism space has yet to reach its full potential. However, with the Soccer World Cup around the corner, the country has a golden opportunity to market itself in this sphere.
Explaining the gateway space, Sunter points at Dubai as the gateway to the Middle East – although it hasn't got a drop of oil, it has done fantastically well. Similarly, Hong Kong is the gateway into China and a huge hive of activity.
He believes South Africa is perfectly poised to be the gateway into Africa – a continent that's opening up for business, so to speak. Angola is currently growing at 16% per annum, Nigeria is rapidly ascending the economic ladder and Zambia boasts the best stock market so far this year in Africa.
I believe our country's available industrial land close to major ports can be used as a trigger mechanism to fuel Sunter's gateway space.
While the residential market is at a countrywide low, the industrial market is steadily growing and this is most visible where clients can acquire prime industrial development land close to a harbour.
Foreign investors have identified this opportunity and are honing in on port cities such as Port Elizabeth and Richards Bay to give them a foothold into the country and farther afield.
Richards Bay is acknowledged as the gateway to Mozambique via the Maputo Corridor, while PE offers a gateway to the Garden Route and is geographically the most central port between Johannesburg in Gauteng, Cape Town in the Western Cape and Durban in KwaZulu-Natal.
With a little bit of vision and by building on existing and upcoming investment opportunities, we should be able to harness the gaping gateway to Africa space to our advantage.