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Saturday, January 2, 2010

Advice On Making African Investments

By Jay Berg

In the eyes of the investment worlds, Africa has always been thought of as a 'basket case' and an area not to be considered too heavily for any regular investor. In very recent times however, the markets in Africa have seen some significant growth and development and there are some growing and attractive options in African investments for the right investor.

But why invest in Africa when there are other options elsewhere that you could take advantage of and would be far easier. For one thing, investing in Africa is a positive and somewhat philanthropic thing to do, as it not only serves your won financial ends, but it helps to build up a continent in need of finance and aid. The continent has suffered and continues to suffer from serious internal issues ranging from civil war and famine to disease and political strife. For a long time this has put off different funds from offering investment into a country they thought as far too unstable to provide steady financial returns. Nonetheless, and more so now, there is great potential there.

The best chance for the continent of Africa to build itself from being the worlds poorest to being able to compete on the world's stage in generations to come is not in the continued use of foreign aid from a host of individuals and governments, but in foreign investment and private enterprise. As long as this doesn't cross the line and lead to exploitation as has been seen before in such things as the diamond trade. Two or so years ago only about 1% of foreign investment was put into sub-Saharan Africa, yet new figures have suggested that investment here offers greater returns than in any other world region.

Surely then there are great opportunities to make investments. Yet due to the perceived risks, these levels remain smaller than they could and perhaps should be. With political strife all over and currency fluctuations affecting economic stability, you may just run the risk of your investment being lost. However, it is important that you simply know what you are doing and where to go with your money. On the whole there has been a great growth in democracy around the region and this has led on to greater development in different markets and industries.

The economic performance in sub-Saharan Africa is increasing, with the largest growth areas being seen in industries such as finance, infrastructure and tourism. Tourism particularly is an important industry for African nations and encourages people to see what these countries have to offer, in turn bringing in foreign investment.

Furthermore, the stock markets of Africa are seeing dramatic improvement, outscoring world averages on a regular basis. Meanwhile the stock exchanges have increases from ten to eighteen over the last ten or so years. South Africa is also seeing positive growth, which is important seeing as it accounts for roughly a quarter of the entire GDP of the continent.

Timely investments in Africa could provide some very good returns for the canny investor. Within their growing markets and industry, there are safer bets, and more risky ones. It all really depends on how much you are willing to risk in order to gain potentially large rewards.

It is however, not easy to do so. Since there is low demand, it is difficult to find fund managers who will be offering African funds. It is possible perhaps to find some good exposure to certain mining funds, through some of the larger funds. Other funds will offer some exposure to Africa. Genesis, a successful fund in emerging markets, for example, has a 10% of its fund invested in South Africa and other 5% in Egypt, with smaller holding in growing African nations. For someone adamant that they find an appropriate fund, they can be discovered. - 23204

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