Stakeholders in the public and private sectors are set to convene in London for The Global African Investment Summit (TGAIS) where 136 bankable projects worth a combined total of $246 billion, will be presented.
Specific transactions and access to finance in Sub Saharan Africa requiring investment and technology transfer will also be discussed at the event which holds from October 20 to 21.
“Today, Africa stands as the last great frontier in emerging markets. Its attractiveness is real. More than $200bn worth of capital under management will be represented at TGAIS,” said Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of Nigeria and chairman of the event.
“Its money that I hope we can direct towards agribusinesses, power and energy projects and vital infrastructure over the course of the Summit,” he added.
Many African economies have grown exponentially over the last decade and the upward trajectory is expected to continue. A recent World Bank report projects regional GDP growth to strengthen to 5.2 percent yearly in 2015-16 from 4.6 percent in 2014, due to significant public investment in infrastructure, increased agricultural production and expanding services in African retail, telecoms, transportation, and finance.
Pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, PE firms, asset managers, bankers, corporates, professional services firms and project developers will therefore convene at the summit, to review the continent’s most bankable projects in strategic sectors spurring the continent’s growth and competitiveness: power and transport infrastructure, agribusiness, natural resources and tourism.
The focus of the Summit, which is seeking to direct funds from some of the world’s largest institutional investors into quality projects across the continent, will be on Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The Presidents of these countries will open the Summit.
The 136 projects due to be presented in London include a crude oil pipeline development project worth $5 billion in Uganda, a pineapple production and processing project in Ghana worth $341 million, a $13.5 billion Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali railway, among others. Investors will listen to pitches from the developers of a range of power generation and distribution projects spanning the full energy mix from traditional sources to renewables and ranging from 35MW to 4800MW in locations across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tunisia, Rwanda, DRC, Benin, Sierra Leone, Cameroon and South Africa. The government of the DRC will present the Bukanga-Lonzo Agriculture Business Park project, an integrated production, processing and infrastructure initiative, which has a ticket of $ 500million.
According to Ayo Salami, Chief Investment Officer at Duet Group, a global alternative asset management firm noted that the Global Africa Investment Summit “is critical in facilitating transactions and building a more nuanced understanding of risk and opportunity on the ground.
“The more people engage actively with the continent, embracing the contradictions, the unpredictability and the incredible thirst for innovation, the better they will be placed to identify outsize returns,” Salami added.
It is expected that the Summit will herald greater investments in Africa as the continent continues its impressive growth.
