Africa News blog

Is Africa a good bet?

For those looking to invest in Africa, the best prospects are in Nigeria and Ethiopia according to a new index of potential investment destinations published this week.

But should anybody want to put money into Africa at a time the global financial crisis and falling prices for export commodities, on which the continent is so reliant, have discouraged investors who had begun to see some African countries as promising frontier markets?

“Africa is going to overtake the Middle East to become the second fastest growing region in the world after emerging Asia. It will be affected by the global financial crisis but it is much less exposed than many places,” Katharine Pulvermacher, chief executive of business consultancy African Rainbow said this week on the launch of its Star of Africa index.

The index’s creators told my colleague Peter Apps that potential growth in energy, water and communications consumption could amply reward investors taking the risk in Africa. South Africa, Mauritius and Tanzania took third, fourth and fifth place respectively on the index. Somalia, Chad and Eritrea were the least appealing countries for investors.

The International Monetary Fund’s most recent forecast of economic growth for Africa this year was 3.3 percent – much slower than the 5-6 percent of recent years but good by the standards of Western countries in recession. A senior IMF official noted recently, however, that African growth could be sharply lower than its forecasts.

“Remittances, tourism revenue and even aid, we feel could fall further,” said the IMF’s Africa Department Director Antoinette Sayeh.

The African markets that had attracted most foreign investment in recent years – not only developed South Africa but also countries such as Nigeria and Kenya – are among those that have so far been hardest hit, while smaller economies that may not have had so far to fall have been less touched.

Will global crisis hurt remittances to Africa?

It seems everyone in Africa has family members living abroad.

Just stop someone on the street and ask if they have a cousin, a brother, or a sister living in Europe, the United States or elsewhere around Africa, and most likely they’ll say that they have two or three or more. Remittances from those loved ones total some $40 billion per year, according to the United Nations. In some countries, diaspora money makes up more than 20 percent of the gross domestic product, and analysts say, remittance cash may be as much as 50 percent higher than current estimates due to informal transfers.

But there is growing concern that this money could be a victim of a spiralling crisis in global financial markets.

It’s still too early to tell how much remittances from the estimated 30 million Africans living abroad have been impacted by the crisis, which, world financial bodies warn, could lead to a global slowdown. But some families have already been told to expect less money.

This year, the continent has suffered a dual attack from high oil and commodity prices. And now, if there is a shortfall in remittances, a third front would put an added strain on wallets and purses. But in some ways, Africa is better-placed to weather some of the storm because its banking sector is relatively unexposed and its economic ties with Asia are deepening. For remittances, the fear is that if a recession hits Europe or the United States, traditionally resilient flows could ebb as migrants’ purse strings are pulled tighter and tighter.

Will a slowing of global economies hit remittance money from Africa’s large diaspora? Or, will Africans abroad prove resilient yet again and continue to send the same amount of money to families back home?