By  RICHARD CALLAND —

The first of these that will restore the country’s competitive advantage is to get rid of No 1.

“It doesn’t matter what you say about South Africa, it’s going to sound better than Brazil or Russia.” Those were the words that greeted my arrival for the dessert course of a triangular dinner conversation on emerging markets hosted by financial services company UBS in London last week.

An amusing “speed dating” format required analysts from the three countries to rotate around three dining rooms replete with investors, traders and fund managers.

In the markets everything is relative. So while we look at things against an absolute standard, the people who decide where to put their clients’ capital are comparing South Africa with the likes of Turkey, Russia, Indonesia, Chile and Brazil. In most of these places – and especially in the bigger, more established emerging markets such as India and China – growth has slowed rapidly. Economic sluggishness is par for the course at the moment.

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