Africa Forum points to Jersey opportunities

Monday 22 June 2015

Following the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa and after Jersey Finance hosted a series of roadshows across the continent last week, Paul Clark, Africa Equities Specialist at Ashburton Investments, who base their international business in Jersey, believes an abundance of opportunities could unlock further growth in Africa and provide opportunities to investors.

Having attended the Forum, held in Cape Town, Mr Clark believes that comments emanating from various sessions at the event reinforce the findings of a report published last year which found that Africa needs to address its infrastructure investment and that Jersey can help facilitate that investment.

The ‘Jersey’s Value to Africa’ report, published last year by Capital Economics and commissioned by Jersey Finance, found that whilst Africa has the opportunity to grow 5% each year to 2040, to do so it will need to invest $85 trillion in its infrastructure and, of that, $6.1 trillion will have to come through foreign direct investment routed through well-regulated International Finance Centres like Jersey – a message that was being reinforced at the inaugural Jersey Finance Africa Roadshow series last week in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Nairobi and Lagos.

Mr Clark said: “What was particularly exciting about this year’s Forum was the almost complete focus on African solutions to African challenges with the continent looking to solve its issues with new and innovative solutions that it can afford. Embracing technology is one example - delivering drugs to rural communities with drones is a now a real way to improve access to healthcare and something that would simply not have been discussed a few years ago.

“Of course, we are all aware that Africa faces backlogs in infrastructure spending, and the Forum clearly identified areas that need to be addressed, in particular access to international capital markets, intra-African investment, good governance, private sector involvement and access to technology. That’s why solutions like Public Private Partnerships were a key issue discussed at the Forum this year, but also why foreign direct investment through specialist infrastructure and private equity fund centres like Jersey could play a big part.”

At the Forum, Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and currently Chair of the WEF Global Strategic Infrastructure Initiative, said that the consistent challenge when sourcing finance for the continent is ‘that the perceived risk is always much higher than the real risk’.  Many businesses in Jersey have existing relationships on the continent and are therefore well placed to understand the environment and assist with providing appropriate solutions.