Neighbourhood Gong Edition 15

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Business THE CHANGING BUSINESS LANDSCAPE IN AFRICA IT'S ABOUT TIME, AFRICA Apart from Chinese businesses, most other international firms are still debating Africa's potential for large investments. This is primarily because Africa is fragmented into many different countries, and even in aggregate, the continent has a fairly small economy. In adition, the continent's economies are too poorly run to attract "firms of integrity". But there has been a sustained sea of change over the last few decades. Africa's journey, from "The Hopeless Continent" and "Africa Rising" to "Aspiring Africa" on the covers of The Economist in May 2000, December 2011 and March 2013) respectively has been nothing but eventful. With some of the world's fastest-growing economies, Africa has become the newest destination for emerging markets investors. From 2001 to 2014, about 4 out of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world were in Sub-Saharan Africa. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) even expects other African nations to make its way into that list by next year. The economies of most African nations have grown by an average of 5 - 6% per annum, spiralling continental growth. The situation of Africa transitioning into the 'greens' subtly began to change during the period 1990-2005. Profound macroeconomic reforms tamed ination and opened economies to international trade. More patchily, the regulatory environment facing international business also improved. Public ratings, such as the World Bank's Doing Business surveys, Transparency international's Corruption perception index (CPI) enabled African governments to benchmark and peer review their performance and pressurize the recalcitrants. As the global commodity boom surged to its 2008 crescendo, many African countries were well positioned to harness the spike in their export revenues for growth. That upturn in national growth rates was mirrored in the increased protability of companies operating in Africa. Indeed, three distinct sources of data indicate that returns were higher in Africa than in other regions. One was a comprehensive study of the publicly traded companies operating in Africa for the period 2002- 07, mostly in the manufacturing and services sectors. It found that these companies' average return on capital was around twothirds higher than that of comparable companies in China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. UNCTAD report, on the foreign direct investment of US companies, showed that they were getting a higher return on their African investments than on those in other regions. Finally, analysis of a series of surveys of several thousand manufacturing rms around the developing world found that, at the margin, capital investment had a higher return in Africa. The continent is incredibly rich in natural resources. It has huge, untapped reserves of natural gas and oil (10% of world's reserves), and largely unexploited hydroelectric power. It's the home to vast gold, platinum, uranium, iron ore, copper and diamond reserves. Currently, only 10% 29 www.mygong.net
Business of Africa's arable land is being cultivated, yet it holds around 60% of the world's cultivable land. As such, Africa has become a magnet for foreign direct investment (fdi). Africa also has the advantage of a large, relatively cheap educated labour force. The continent is undergoing a demographic transformation with youth as its theme; there is a very high proportion of Africans in their 20s and 30s with fewer dependents - both old and young - that will play out over the next decade. There is stability in terms of governance; the countries which witnessed terrible periods of unrest have emerged as success stories. There are better policies in place, trade has improved, and so has the business environment. According to the un world population prospects report, Africa will be the fastest-growing continent "by any measure" over the course of the 21st century. Investors are understandably interested. Africa diligently weathered the economic storms. Led by its two largest economies, South Africa and Nigeria, most countries had built prudent scal positions culminating in their remarkable divorce from the Briton wood Institutions. Nigeria had freed itself from debt and built up over $70 billion of foreign-exchange reserves. Further, the adverse impact of the crisis through commodity prices lasted less than a year for Africa. Globally, excerpt gold, commodity prices rapidly bounced back and seem to have stabilized around levels markedly higher than those in the decades before the boom, underwritten by growing Asian economies and their corresponding need for commodities and other supplies. The contrast between Nigeria's dysfunctional management of its rst oil boom of 1973-83 and its brilliant management of the second boom of 2003-08 cautions against the gloomy cynicism that until recently bedevilled investor thinking about Africa. The road to economic transformation is undoubtedly likely to be a bumpy one, but many African societies have learned both from their own histories and from the prosperity of other once-poor countries. Unlike the externally dictated structuraladjustment programs of the 1980s, the key struggles over economic policy will be internal to African societies. To date, Africa has lacked the spectacular regional role models of economic success that so beneted Asia. Even in Rwanda, a landlocked, crowded country lacking in natural resources, a leadership committed to economic transformation has been able to sustain a growth rate around 10 percent. In some of the continents economies with more favourable fundamentals, even faster growth rates will be sustained. Such successes will have a profound inuence on the neighbours, just as occurred in Asia. If indeed there is a positive between democracy and economic transformation, then the continent of Africa is arrived. More recently, some African leaders, such as President Museveni of Uganda, President Kagame of Rwanda, and Prime Minister Meles of Ethiopia, have built strong credentials for a commitment to the economic transformation of their societies while being ardent democrats. Africa's coming economic successes will be in societies that have won the struggle for accountable democratic government. But others will be in societies in which autocratic leaders have become ambitious for national goals rather than merely for power and privilege; expect some African repetitions of Malaysia's experience. After President Nkrumah and few others, Africa has lacked the spectacular regional role models of economic success that so beneted Asia. But it is now starting to get them. Africa's economic potential extends well beyond commodity exporting. Africa will soon be the last remaining major low-wage region. It has an enormous coastline, more proximate to both European and North American markets than Asia is. Over the past three decades, offshoring shifted labour-intensive manufacturing from the OECD countries to Asia. In the next decade, expect the same process to begin shifting these activities from Asia to Africa. Contrary to fears that the "Dutch disease'' must inevitably make non resource exports uncompetitive, the Asian examples of Malaysia and Indonesia have demonstrated that successful exporting of natural resources can be entirely compatible with successful exporting of light manufactures. From Africa's independence, beginning in the mid-1950s, until around the turn of the millennium, the OECD prospered while Africa stagnated. Africa may be on the cusp of a reversal of fortunes. Indeed, Africa is now growing markedly more rapidly than the OECD.'' A future of continued rapidly rising prosperity for the OECD looks less assured than it did before the global crisis, whereas several decades of high growth looks to be quite a likely scenario for Africa. At present, the typical investment portfolio has massive exposure to the OECD countries and negligible exposure to Africa. This looks unlikely to be appropriate for the coming decades''. Although the routes may be muddy and rough as any journey, Africa has what it takes; Vision, resources, discipline, personnel and the transformational leadership to drive this desired agenda. Africa needs it more than ever. Africa cannot wait, THIS IS THE TIME AFRICA. 30 www.mygong.net
Page 4 and 5: EDITI 15 N Credits Rhema Network Li
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Page 8 and 9: Front view of Nkrumah Museum Nkrofu
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Page 19 and 20: Fashion Did you know that you could
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Page 26 and 27: GHANAIANS ABROAD GLOBAL SUPERSTARS
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Page 44 and 45: USEFUL NUMBERS AFRICAN CUISINE OTHE
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