The development will include a conference centre, two hotels and retail units, said Chieftain general manager Sean O'Sullivan. Chieftain has submitted plans and hopes to have approval from authorities in Tshwane (formerly Pretoria) within six weeks. "It's a mayoral project, so it's getting fast-tracked, " he said.

The Tshwane scheme is being developed as a public private partnership in line with the South African government's Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy.

Chieftain, which has a 30% stake, will manage the project; the remaining 70% is held by local community groups, O'Sullivan said.

Chieftain came into contact with the local government in Tshwane through its residential property development in South Africa. "We threw a few ideas at the municipality and this came out of it, " O'Sullivan said. The centrepiece of the scheme is a 7,500sq m convention centre with space for over 2,000 delegates, beside which Chieftain plans to develop two hotels.

The company has not yet decided whether it will build the hotels itself and seek an operator, or bring a specialist hotel operator on board to develop the hotels from scratch.

South Africa now accounts for up to a quarter of Chieftain's activity, O'Sullivan said.

"The opportunities are there.

It's like Ireland was 10 or 12 years ago. The World Cup will be there in 2010. They've got a lot of plans in place for an Olympic bid for the 2016 games and there's a lot of government investment in infrastructure."

The Tshwane scheme is one of a growing number of South African projects for the Limerick company. O'Sullivan said it has eight residential schemes "on the go", requiring a total investment of some 250m in the coming years. The company expects to break ground on the first of these developments within the next two months.

Most recent accounts filed for Chieftain show it made operating profit of 1m in 2004. Turnover is not disclosed. Chieftain had turnover of 40m last year, O'Sullivan said, but expects 50m this year and has targeted 200m in revenue within four years.