GEORGE PHILIPAS: Infrastructure spending in Africa is at a crossroads
Despite the current pandemic-induced malaise, there are enough reasons to be cautiously optimistic
The pandemic has certainly not been kind to investment prospects in Africa. Led by a slowdown in infrastructure investment from China, foreign direct investment (FDI), already heading south before the onset of the pandemic, fell by 18% in 2020.
More ominously greenfield investment, investment in new projects, fell precipitously by 63% according to the Global Investment Trends Monitor released by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) in January 2021, the largest regional fall in the globe last year. The proverbial onslaught culminated with the announcement earlier this month at the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation (Focac) in Dakar, Senegal, that plots Sino-African relations for the next three years, of a vertical drop in investment from China from $60bn to $40bn...
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