Africa ready for multi-billion USD investment deals: AfDB

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With the three-day Africa Investment Forum underway in Johannesburg, Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, promised that this year's event is set to clinch multi-billion dollars of investment deals focusing on diverse projects.

"Africa is ready to absorb a lot more of those investments. The risk perceptions of the continent, while high, are often exaggerated. And they do not match what data shows on risk and return performance on investments," he said on Monday.

Adesina said rising economic growth in a number of African countries was encouraging. According to the World Bank, six of the ten fastest growing economies are in Africa and have resulted in better investments.

"Commodity prices are recovering. Foreign direct investments in Africa increased in 2018 by 11 percent, compared to 4 percent in Asia, and a decline of 13 per cent, globally. So, Africa is doing well on investments, but it still needs a lot more," he said.

Adesina said that progress has been made since last year's Forum and their objective was to improve from this.

"The railway project launched by Thelo DB to support Africa is advancing, and we will be discussing here the railway linking Tanzania, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo," he said, noting that the Mara Phone project which was first introduced at the Forum last year has already opened manufacturing plants in Kigali in Rwanda and Durban, South Africa.

He added the Forum was about achieving concrete deals with the goal of improving business sectors including infrastructure in Africa.

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