What To Consider With African Investments
Africa has always been viewed as a 'basket case' in the eyes of the investment world and never seen as a particularly likely investment opportunity. However, in recent times, markets in Africa have seen some significant growth and there are now some good options for making African investments.
The question is, why invest in Africa when there are safer opportunities elsewhere? Well, there are certainly big profits to be made, as well as the fact that you will be helping the poorest continent on the planet. The country does suffer from serious problems, from famine, disease and civil war, and this has put many people off investing for a long time. That is not to say that there is not great potential however.
These natural resources have led to exploitation and pillaging by foreign nations and indeed the colonialist attitudes of the British Empire amongst others have somewhat led to the deep economic issues that the continent suffers today. As a result Africa sees constant aid in the form of charity and relief and yet the only way that the nations of Africa will begin to flourish is through a massive increase in foreign enterprise and investment. As can be seen from the figures, a couple of years back, sub-Saharan Africa accounted for a mere 1% of foreign investment. Yet it has also be shown that this region provides the highest returns on investment than any other in the whole world.
The risks of investing in Africa are most definitely prevalent. With political strife, currency fluctuations, and poorly developed markets, you may run the risk of seeing any investment swallowed up. However, whilst there are a number of unstable areas, there has been a significant rise in democracy in many countries that have begun also to develop their own markets open up their economies.
Sub-Saharan Africa has been seeing its best economic performance for years and is fast on the increase. The largest areas of growth within the nations are infrastructure, finance, tourism and vehicles. Timely investments in these industries have seen very good returns for investors who are not risk-averse.
Stocks markets have also seen large improvements, regularly outscoring averages around the world, and increasing in number from ten to eighteen in the past twenty or so years. South Africa also, fundamental to the growth of the continent has been seeing consistent growth and continues to account for about 25% of the continents GDP.
Timely investment therefore can provide big rewards and some big returns. However it is tricky to find funds still that deal with African countries and industry. That said, for a canny investor there are still those available such as the mining trade with sees investment from foreign funds.
However with some digging, it is possible to locate some good exposure to mining funds. One good fund that offers considerable exposure in Africa is called Genesis, who have 10% invested in South Africa and 5% in Egypt. These are safer investment areas, but they also have some smaller levels of investment in some nations with smaller economies, but large prospects. - 23208
The question is, why invest in Africa when there are safer opportunities elsewhere? Well, there are certainly big profits to be made, as well as the fact that you will be helping the poorest continent on the planet. The country does suffer from serious problems, from famine, disease and civil war, and this has put many people off investing for a long time. That is not to say that there is not great potential however.
These natural resources have led to exploitation and pillaging by foreign nations and indeed the colonialist attitudes of the British Empire amongst others have somewhat led to the deep economic issues that the continent suffers today. As a result Africa sees constant aid in the form of charity and relief and yet the only way that the nations of Africa will begin to flourish is through a massive increase in foreign enterprise and investment. As can be seen from the figures, a couple of years back, sub-Saharan Africa accounted for a mere 1% of foreign investment. Yet it has also be shown that this region provides the highest returns on investment than any other in the whole world.
The risks of investing in Africa are most definitely prevalent. With political strife, currency fluctuations, and poorly developed markets, you may run the risk of seeing any investment swallowed up. However, whilst there are a number of unstable areas, there has been a significant rise in democracy in many countries that have begun also to develop their own markets open up their economies.
Sub-Saharan Africa has been seeing its best economic performance for years and is fast on the increase. The largest areas of growth within the nations are infrastructure, finance, tourism and vehicles. Timely investments in these industries have seen very good returns for investors who are not risk-averse.
Stocks markets have also seen large improvements, regularly outscoring averages around the world, and increasing in number from ten to eighteen in the past twenty or so years. South Africa also, fundamental to the growth of the continent has been seeing consistent growth and continues to account for about 25% of the continents GDP.
Timely investment therefore can provide big rewards and some big returns. However it is tricky to find funds still that deal with African countries and industry. That said, for a canny investor there are still those available such as the mining trade with sees investment from foreign funds.
However with some digging, it is possible to locate some good exposure to mining funds. One good fund that offers considerable exposure in Africa is called Genesis, who have 10% invested in South Africa and 5% in Egypt. These are safer investment areas, but they also have some smaller levels of investment in some nations with smaller economies, but large prospects. - 23208
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posted by X - Men @ 6:52 AM
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