Publications
Partners
Cape Town – National Treasury has given the general public a month to comment on its newly published Foreign Member Funds Framework, declared by Minister of Finance Nhlanhla Nene on Wednesday.
The framework is expected to be instrumental in bolstering South Africa’s stature as the gateway into Africa for foreign member fund investment. It also gives expression to greater protection and regulation of hedge funds and equities.
President Cyril Ramaphosa made his intentions clear at a recent African Union gathering, during which he said African states would work to build channels of investment and cooperation between the continent's economies.
In a statement National Treasury said the current dispensation for foreign member fund management allows South African institutional investors to invest offshore subject to various foreign investment limits, depending on the type of institutional investor.
“The proposed foreign member funds framework aims to create a favourable regulatory environment that will facilitate the flow of foreign capital through South Africa and thereby make it seamless and attractive for foreign funds to be managed and invested into the rest of the continent and beyond through South Africa,” the statement said.
The statement said the framework will be piloted through the collective investment structure under the Collective Investment Schemes Control Act. Section 63 of the act empowers the minister to declare a specific type of business to be a collective investment scheme.
“Public comments received during this consultation period will assist the drafting and finalisation of the regulatory standards as well as the draft Notice for the declaration of the FMF as a collective investment scheme in terms of section 63 of the Collective Investment Schemes Control Act,” the statement said.
