Indian trade to grow in Africa
A report out this week suggests India will quadruple revenues from Africa by 2025.
With weak demand for Indian goods in traditional markets such as Europe and the US, Africa is already proving to be increasingly important.
A number of companies hope to boost their presence on the continent in the coming years, as Shilpa Kannan reports.
Africa’s biggest economy needs social safety net
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After it overhauled its economic statistics for the first time in decades, Nigeria this year announced that it had overtaken South Africa to become the continent’s largest economy. Government officials rejoiced and foreign investors celebrated.
The revision brings Nigeria significantly closer to its objective of joining the world’s top-20 nations by 2020, overtaking other emerging nations in Asia and Latin America.
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Nigerian gross domestic product for 2013 was reÂcalculated at $510bn, a hefty 89 per cent more than previously stated, and well above South Africa’s $350bn.
The new estimates were made by updating the base year for calculations to 2010 from 1991, when booming sectors in Nigeria such as the mobile phone industry, the banking sector and the “Nollywood” film industry were in their infancy.
Towards accelerating inclusive growth in Africa
At the opening plenary of the 24th World Economic Forum on Africa on Thursday, May 8, 2014, it was revealed that 112 million workers would enter Africa’s labour force by 2020.
According to President Goodluck Jonathan, who expressed the view that the need to create jobs remained a global problem, in Africa, unemployment problem was compounded by youthful population and pending demographic transition.
According to him, “an additional 112 million workers will enter Africa’s labour force by 2020. This is daunting and should be a wake-up call to all of us in Africa to work harder on job creation with a great sense of urgency.”
Job creation, which President Jonathan said remained the main focus of Nigeria’s Transformation Agenda, was the main focus of the event, alongside inclusive growth. Without inclusive growth, it was observed, “inequality will endanger progress in Africa.
China playing a vital role in developing Africa's economy
China and Africa are well suited for one another. African development is being held back by a lack of infrastructure and Chinese firms have a proven track record in building power, communications and transport networks. Premier Li Keqiang's offer of Chinese assistance to link the continent's capitals with high-speed railways would improve opportunities and growth potential. Such a project would be mutually beneficial and help allay concerns by some Africans that Beijing is only being driven by self-interest.
The big natural-resource deals signed by Chinese leaders during visits to Africa gives uninformed observers the impression that the main interest in the continent is its mineral wealth. Angola and Nigeria, stops along with Ethiopia and Kenya during Li's week-long trip, are significant sources of oil for China (Angola is the second-biggest after Saudi Arabia).
