A new survey has shown that the investment outlook across Africa, particularly Eastern and sub-Saharan Africa, is becoming more “promising” as countries yield marketing successes to international investors.
About three-quarters of the respondents to independent global business advisory firm FTI Consulting’s ‘Annual research on Africa’ survey believed overall investment in the continent would increase over the next 12 months.
Some 90% of the business leaders questioned were positive about investment in East Africa, while 80% said they were positive about investment in sub-Saharan Africa.
The outlook for North Africa has also improved, as the percentage of those saying they were positive about the region doubled over the past 12 months to 66%.
“These numbers reflect the successes that countries such as Rwanda, Kenya, Mauritius, South Africa and Morocco have had in marketing themselves to international investors,” FTI said on Wednesday.
Two-thirds of respondents said Rwanda was “particularly good” at marketing itself and providing relevant information to investors.
“Rwanda is an excellent example of how an African country’s government can work to attract international investment,” said FTI MD Joel Kibazo.
“Some 64% made a similar judgement about Kenya – a jump of 21 percentage points over 2016. Mauritius and South Africa scored about the same as last year, at 50% each, while Morocco more than doubled its polling, at 41%,” he added.
The survey also noted that it was important for business leaders to be able to work with African and international political leaders and promote the collaboration between business and government.
One area of potential collaboration between the public and private sectors is public–private partnerships (PPPs), with 81% of the respondents expecting an increase in such partnerships over the next 12 months – up from 67% last year.
Nearly nine out of ten respondents said they believed the availability of more PPPs would encourage investment into Africa, said Kibazo.
Also emerging as an important element in promoting investment is regulatory consistency across the African continent, with 70% of the respondents noting that it was an imperative that African leaders need to focus on.
Some 73% of those questioned said the lack of regulatory consistency is one of the main barriers to intra-African trade.
Further, 86% believed that improving infrastructure was also a crucial theme.
“There is already considerable optimism in this area, with 87% of those who responded to the survey saying they believed there would be an increase in investment in next-generation communications infrastructure, including fibre and broadband. Some 82% believe investment in more traditional infrastructure will increase as well,” FTI concluded.