Africa chance and investment has become hot topics at the World Economic Forum on Africa launched here Wednesday, with participants holding that the world investors are getting better returns and lowering risks there.
Jay Naidoo, chairman of the Board of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, said at the forum that worldwide investments in Africa are increasing at a pace of 25 percent with 400 million U.S. dollars of foreign capital inflow annually.
With increasing economic globalization and sharp African awakening to economic development, the chance offered by Africa are benefiting both advanced countries such as the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Japan, as well as the developing giants including China, India, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Other developed lik Canada and Australia are also gearing up for greater investment in Africa.
Meanwhile, the African economic powers such as South Africa, Nigeria, Botswana, Algeria and Egypt are also vying for market shares in their own continent.
The Indian enterprises are showing intense interests in investing in Africa, which has invested a total of 2.5 billion U.S. dollars here, accounting for 16 percent of the country's total investment overseas.
The Indian enterprises are mainly focusing their investment in the sectors of IT, textiles and garments, iron and steel, medicines and petroleum in the African countries of South Africa, Mauritius and Uganda.
The India Import and Export Bank particularly encourages investment by Indian enterprises in Africa and has financed a lot of projects in the continent.
South Africa has all along been one of the most important investors in Africa by taking advantage of its superiority both in economy and location. The African economic giant has invested in more than 100 projects in 21 African countries, including the sectors of railway, power plants, banks, supermarkets, telecommunications and mining.
South Africa has doubled its investment from 6.1 billion rand (around 789 million U.S. dollars) to 14 billion rand over the past four years. It also managed to reap higher returns than the Western developed countries, averaging at 30 percent, or sometimes as high as 40 percent to 50 percent.
The "Look East" development strategy adopted by the African countries has opened its door wider to Asian countries, mainly China, said Wendy Luhabe, Chairperson of Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa.
The cooperation between Africa and China has huge potential. The economic success of the latter has injected strong confidence for the African countries. In only a short span of 30 years, China has turned a poor nation into one of the economic giants in the world.
China invested heavily in Africa with mutual-benefit principles and expanded imports from the African countries. China has provided the most favorable treatment to over 40 African countries and imposed zero tariff to 28 least-developed African countries over 190 taxation items.
Sadako Ogata, President of Japan International Cooperation Agency, said that the Japanese enterprises are now paying more attention to the African countries, which also realize the importance of cooperation with Japan.
The Tokyo International Conference on African Development held at the end of May drew more than 1,000 African politicians and entrepreneurs. And the Japanese government declared to increase its development aid to Africa to 200 billion yen (1.9 billion U.S. dollars) by 2012.
A series of bilateral summits have been held with Africa, including the one with India in April, the one with Europe last December, and the one with China in 2006. African development is also listed on the agenda of G8 summit to be held in Japan in July.
Africa offers more changes than challenges to the world and the continent itself benefits a lot from the close cooperation form the international community, said Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, chairman of Dubai World of the United Arab Emirates.
Africa needs worldwide investors in boosting its own development, which has witnessed annual FDI increase of 26 percent in 2007, or foreign investment of 38 billion U.S. dollars annually.
Source:Xinhua
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