‘Now is Africa’s time to shine’

While the global economic crisis will affect Africa, particularly in terms of commodity prices, it’s also the continent’ golden opportunity, in the view of Lynette Chen, CEO of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) Business Foundation (NBF) “Due to the poor credit performance globally, investments in Africa will show returns much quicker that in the rest of the world – in only 10 years or so. If we can package African developments such as the Walvis Bay Corridor properly, then we will have great opportunities to get investors. It is Africa’s time to shine,” she said. Gerd Wieneke, managing director of Accolade Properties Namibia (APN), adds that they are being approached by numerous European equity companies. “After the global credit crunch they are not funding anything connected with corruption or the like so this is currently the perfect climate for them to invest in the SADC region.”