Time to Invest in Africa and Africa’s Capital Markets: WB

BY GEOFFREY NANGAI

THE World Bank has called upon investors worldwide to invest in Africa and its budding capital markets the World Bank Vice President for Africa, Obiageli (Oby) Ezekwesili said.

“Africa has taught the world a lesson in macroeconomic reform and stability,” she told an African Investment Summit hosted by the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

Oby urged investors who are in search of the right market at a time of growing fears of a global recession to “rediscover Africa”.

“Africa’s fundamentals appear strong, and the continent’s outlook remains positive,” Oby said, pointing to the continent’s rapid rebound from the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, and its higher GDP growth rates projected to be 4.8 percent, 5.2 percent and 5.5 percent respectively in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

“It makes business sense to bet on Africa’s capital markets at a time when “global equity markets are headed for their worst quarter since 2008”, and returns on investments in Africa are among some of the best anywhere in the world,” she said in a statement availed to The African.

She cited a recent study by Oxford University Professor, Paul collier, which found the return on capital for over 950 African enterprises to be on the average 11 percent higher than in Latin America and Asia, and 70 percent more profitable if compared against similar Chinese firms.

On the issue of capital inflows to Africa, the World Bank Vice President explained, “because the continent has become a friendlier and more profitable market, about which businesses, consumers, investors and development partners are all bullish.

The CEO of the London Stock Exchange and Vice Chair of the World Federation of Exchanges, Xavier Rolet, whose speech to the summit focused on what international partnerships can do to strengthen sub-Saharan Africa’s capital markets, described Oby as the one person alive who has done the most to improve lives in Africa.

Oby pledged World Bank support to continue to help African governments embrace the right reforms, build the right institutions, make the right public investments, grow the resilience of their economies to shocks and make the right policy choices, including diversifying their economies, developing the private sector and protecting the poor and most vulnerable in a time of crisis