Africa's economic prospects are bright

from the NYTimes:



In a report released Thursday, McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm, presented a bullish message to companies, arguing that “global businesses cannot afford to ignore the potential.”

“The growth we’ve seen in Africa recently is much more widespread than is generally recognized,” said Arend van Wamelen, an author of the report based in Johannesburg for McKinsey, which advises domestic and international companies investing in Africa. “There are a lot of underlying good things going on in the economies.”

The report, titled “Lions on the Move,” includes an array of arresting facts from the firm’s business and economics research arm, the McKinsey Global Institute. Since 2000, 316 million people on the continent have signed up for cellphone service, more than the entire population of the United States; Africa’s billion people spent $860 billion in 2008, more than India’s population of 1.2 billion.

From 2000 to 2008, African economies grew at twice the pace that they did in the 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, Africa was one of only two regions — Asia was the other — where the collective economy rose through the global recession of 2009, by 1.4 percent.

In a clear sign of the reorientation of the economic landscape in Africa, China has provided more financing for roads, power, railways and other infrastructure in recent years than the World Bank. ,,,

full report HERE.