Africa is facing a downward trend in foreign direct investment, which reached a high of $74 billion in 2013 and gradually fell to $41 billion in 2017. This spells doom for the continent’s Agenda 2063 that foresees a well-developed integrated Africa.
In its quest to help reverse the trend, the African Development Bank launched the first Africa-to-Africa (A2A) Investment Report last week ahead of the maiden Africa Investment Forum to be held in Johannesburg in November 2018 to help facilitate project development and financing.
The report identified intra-regional investments as the way forward to boost economic growth and competitiveness as stipulated by the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
It also identified some African companies that have attained the status of investment champions in the continent based on the fact that they believed in the long-term growth potential of Africa and invested outside their home countries.
“African companies that invest in Africa have clear confidence in her long-term growth potential; they are at the cutting edge of their industries and, moreover, are capitalizing on their African context to generate higher returns.
“The highlights, lessons and checklist solutions in this report signpost what it will take for other companies and policymakers to promote an ‘invest with impact’ approach in Africa,” says Akinwumi A. Adesina, President of the African Development Bank Group.
According to the report, Africa has 700 companies with annual revenue of more than $500 million each and the total revenue of the 700 totals $1.4 trillion. 27% of the 700 companies are multinational corporations – the rest are large domestic companies.
400 African companies have revenue of more than $1 billion per year, and these companies are growing faster, and are more profitable than global peers, it added.
Here are the top 5 African companies that are leading the continent’s investment drive with a clear confidence in the region, cutting-edge track record and have capitalized on their African context.
