Africa is Now on the Radar Screen of Institutional Investors

Over the years investors have often talked about Africa, but seldom actually made decisions to invest in the continent.  The continent’s growing population, growing economies and most importantly its natural resources are no secret. Africa contains some of the world’s fastest growing countries and has a total population of almost one billion.  It also contains an estimated 10 percent of the world’s oil reserves.

Maybe now investor perception has changed.  Invest AD, an investment company owned by the Abu Dhabi government in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unit released a survey of 158 institutional investors.  More than half of the institutions who responded indicated that they believed that Africa would be the world’s most attractive region for investment in the next decade.  Even more significant is that virtually all the respondents to the survey anticipated that they would have some investment exposure to Africa by 2016.

According to the survey when asked to rank the three top reasons to invest in the continent, 34 percent cited commodity prices and 39 percent indicated the growing middle class, which is now estimated to be more than 300 million people.

The survey results seem to be a confirmation that investors perhaps aren’t as concerned about corruption and political stability as they have been in the past.

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