Africa tipped to rival Asia within a decade

The acting CEO of the African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI) has announced that the continent will rival Asia in infrastructure financing in 10 years.

Adding to his statement, ATI’s acting chief executive officer Stewart Kinloch says: “From what we’re seeing on the ground, Africa is booming. Large-scale infrastructure projects that were put on hold before the crisis are now coming back on track. I believe that in 10 years, Africa will be as competitive as Asia is today.”

This follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding between ATI and the Export Credit Guarantee Company of Egypt (ECGE).

The memorandum is designed to increase domestic and foreign direct investment (FDI) and exports into Africa.

The new partnership will boost intra-African trade with ECGE and ATI’s combined portfolio of over US$450mn.

This comes after ATI has seen its business more than double each year for the past two years, insuring a total of over US$233mn worth of FDI into the country and US$75mn worth of African exports.

Furthermore, ECGE, which covers exports of infrastructure-based products such as electric cables and cement, saw its Africa portfolio grow by 15% between 2008 and 2010.