Africa’s rail infrastructure
South Africa has 20 000 km of installed rail infrastructure and, given its relatively small size compared to other regional groupings, this translates to a high rail per land area. In absolute terms, the Maghreb region has 8 933 km of installed rail, however, if the underproductive land area were excluded from its total land...
Africa’s road infrastructure
To analyse the investment in road infrastructure in various regions, the total kilometres of both paved and unpaved roads were aggregated. 67% of the road infrastructure in the Maghreb region is paved. Within the region, the top performers are Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco with over 70% of total kilometres of road being paved. Egypt has...
Infrastructure development in Africa
One of the factors that has been proven to enable high growth and development is the provision of high-quality infrastructure. The World Bank estimates that the cost of redressing the gap infrastructure development in Africa requires an annual expenditure of USD 93bn, or less than 5% of the total GDP of the continent. The example...
Africa’s Global Links
Africa’s global links still indicate that even after 50 years after the end of European rule in most parts of Africa, more than a third of Africa’s trade remains with Western Europe. This high concentration shows that historic ties still have a large influence on these markets, but the balance is beginning to shift as...
Relative wealth of regions
Relative wealth is assessed by comparing the Gini coefficient of a region to the GDP per capita, as well as the size of each region on a purchasing power parity basis (PPP). It is apparent that in many African countries, although GDP is growing and is very large in many cases, the wealth generated by...
GDP components and exports by region
The rebasing of Nigeria’s GDP in 2014 has made it clear that the country has Africa’s largest economy. It has also provided a much-improved picture of the changing make-up of the country’s GDP Components. While the country’s exports are heavily focused on oil, extractive industries make up a much smaller proportion of GDP. This is...
Listed equity fundamentals
Listed equity fundamentals such as price to earnings (P/E) ratios are an indication of how highly listed markets are valued at a point in time. Looking at the S&P 500 and the combination of African Indices gives some insight as to how African companies are priced in relation to developed market valuations. Interestingly, the analysis...
African stock exchanges
There is also a significant disparity between the level of development, size and liquidity of exchanges across Africa. However, African stock exchanges as a whole continue to develop at a rapid rate. Organisations such as ASEA (Africa Securities Exchange Association) have done much to enhance governance and promote the development of all its member...
Listed equity performance
Listed equity performance over the last five years based on local currency returns of the major African listed equity markets have been consistent with the continent’s growth expectations. Certain markets have suffered from political strife, but have recovered well to continue returning significant growth to investors. 2014 was a year categorised...
Development Finance Institution Practices in Africa
The focus, and accordingly the investment allocation, of different Development Finance Institutions (DFI) can vary broadly. Development Finance Institution Practices can be driven by the relative wealth of investee countries, or by sector or geography, impact driven, depending on the focus and the ultimate goals of each Development Finance Institutes....
