Transport
A country will never become “first world” without decent transport, according to the head of the trading conglomerate Lonrho (Andrew Clark writes).
Geoffrey White, right, complained that in many parts of Africa, transport links were “appalling” for freight and passengers. He said that delivering a container full of goods cost six times as much in Africa as anywhere else in the world. But Nigerian transport experts said that European investors tended to be behind Indian and Chinese firms in building African infrastructure.
“Of the last 100 airports built in the world, 90 were in Asia,” said Tunde Fagbemi, managing director of the sub-Saharan transport company Maevis. “So who has the correct expertise to do quite a lot of magic? It’s China and India.”
Agriculture
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Africa may contain more than two thirds of the world’s uncultivated land but investors are advised to follow the advice of Warren Buffett that it is better to buy to operate rather than speculate (Anne Ashworth writes).
Otherwise, they risk being “blind-sided by the asymmetries of Africa”, such as trade barriers that mean it is difficult to export food into neighbouring countries. This is the view of Susan Payne, below, chief executive of EmVest, an investment business. The company produces baby vegetables in Swaziland, nuts in South Africa, bananas in Zambia, and has fish farms in Mozambique. Shells from the EmVEst’s macadamia nuts are used to produce electricity, in a process that is environmentally aware and a response to unreliable energy supply that is one of the barriers to successful investment in the region.
Power
Lack of reliable and cheap power is another big barrier to development even though there are ample fossil fuels and renewable energy (David Wighton writes).
But tackling the challenge of Africa’s power shortages has proved difficult and delegates varied widely in their optimism. Some pointed to the large number of new power projects being planned. But many delegates said that the political challenges remained daunting. Power prices are very politically sensitive and foreign investment in the power sector is highly controversial in many countries. “Power tariffs are one of the three things that can topple a government,” said one delegate.