Adesina on why Africa can no longer be ignored

The president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, has said that Africa can no longer be ignored because it has a huge market and investment opportunities to offer.

Adesina said this on Thursday at the launch of the African Economic Outlook 2020, in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

The AfDB president said the continent “is where the focus of the world is right now as growth and investment frontier.

“Just last week, I was in London for the UK-Africa Summit. There has been China-Africa Summit, Japan-Africa Summit, India-Africa Summit, Korea-Africa Summit, Russia-Africa Summit, US-Africa Summit and several others,” he said.

“What do all these countries see? They see opportunities that Africa offers.”

According to him, the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AFTA) makes the continent a market worth $3.3 trillion.

“African economies are growing well, higher than the global average. Our African Economic Outlook estimates show that growth is projected to rise from 3.4 per cent in 2019 to 3.9 per cent in 2020 and 4.1 per cent in 2021,” he said.

“More impressive is that six of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world are now in Africa: Rwanda (8.7 per cent), Cote d’Ivoire (7.4 per cent), Ethiopia (7.4 per cent), Ghana (7.1 per cent), Tanzania (6.8 per cent) and Benin (6.7 per cent).”

Africa is confronted with global trade tensions that have weakened global trade volumes and whose growth rate has declined from 5.7 per cent in 2017 to just 1.1 per cent in 2019, Mr Adesina said.

He said that another challenge some countries are facing in Africa is climate change. He added that the bank recently provided $106 million to support Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi in the aftermath of cyclones.

“Let me be clear, Africa does not have a systemic debt crisis.

“However, we must watch the quality of debt, the mix of debt in terms of concessional and non-concessional, the potential negative effects of rising domestic debt in crowding out private sector access to finance, the increasing level of non-Paris Club bilateral debt, and rising volumes of Euro bonds,” he said.