Where the world’s six fastestgrowing economies reside

Africa has experienced much pain over recorded history – wars, slavery, colonial exploitation, the fallout from the Cold War, famines, natural disasters, corrupt governments, nationalisation, infrastructural decay, and disease. So much so that the continent was, until recently, written off by the rest of the world as a source of raw materials and dumping ground for old technologies and failed experiments at social engineering. In “the rest of the world” one should include South Africa. The mining and logistics companies have been active for some time, but it is only relatively recently that we have seen South African retailers, cellphone operators and banks cross the borders. This, despite the fact that, according to Antonio Matos, Mozambican chairman of the Maputo Corridor Logistics Initiative, six of the world’s fastest-growing economies between 2000 and 2010 were in sub-Saharan Africa. Neighbouring Mozambique has shown consistent growth of over 7% from 2005. Its economy is currently growing at 7.2% and is expected to reach 7.5% in 2012, making it the world’s fourthfastest growing economy after China, India and Ethiopia. It is safe to assume that most exporters still do not put Africa at the top of the list of their priority markets. But – and here comes the “gain” – all that is changing. And the Chinese (themselves an ignored market until the turn of this century) no longer have Africa to themselves. An indicator of this is the large number of African investment conferences being organised for Europeans and Americans (ironically, the majority are not held in Africa). FTW’s team, in its visits to neighbouring countries, has also noticed the change over the past few years. There are now fewer Chinese nationals and foreign aid workers in the lifts and breakfast room. They have been replaced by American, European, British and South American business people. With the world population now having officially reached the seven billion mark, talk around the tables is as likely to include food production and biofuels as it is mining. What is markedly different in this new race for Africa is the understanding that the people of the countries in which the companies are active also need to benefit. This is driven by a number of factors, not the least of which is governance. Speaking at the release of the 2011 Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance, founder and chair of the foundation, Mo Ibrahim, said “we have seen this year that Africa’s young majority are no longer willing to stand for the selective approach to governance adopted by many of our continent’s governments. Africa’s success stories are delivering the whole range of public goods and services that citizens have a right to expect and are forging a path that we hope more will follow.” More open governance translates into a better place in which to do business. According to the 2011 IFC and World Bank Doing Business 2012 report, 43 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have made their regulatory environment more businessfriendly over the past six years. The trend is continuing. Other reports point to Africa’s potential “demographic dividend,” which sees Africa’s growing percentage of young people as the next wave of opportunity after China’s boom. Of course, there is still potential for more pain – if China slows down, and the rest of the world stays in the economic doldrums, export earnings from raw materials will drop. That may not be a bad thing. What we understand now is that Africa offers one of the world’s biggest markets. There is no reason why we should not be using our own raw materials to produce the products needed and wanted by the people of the continent.