Egypt and Morocco among top Africa investment opportunities

The US consultancy firm Frost & Sullivan said Wednesday that Morocco, Algeria and Egypt were among the dozen African economics with the best potential to attract trade, business and investment. Egypt carries the most weight but is affected by social and political problems, while Morocco is the most stable, the firm's operations director for Africa, Henrik Malan, said. ''There are about 11 economies that we tend to concentrate on and that regularly attract investment,'' Malan said in response to the question of what African countries are the most attractive for Italian and/or European investors. Malan underscored to ANSA that he was referring to countries ''where there is strong economic growth/stability''. ''Tier One opportunities,'' he added, include South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, Morocco, Algeria and Egypt. These countries tend to attract the vast majority of investment and interest from both local and international companies.'' The operations director noted that ''Egypt is still a formidable economy (third in GDP rankings, with a wide margin), but socio-political turbulence has thus far slowed its development.'' Cairo, Malan added, ''still receives a large share of direct investment, but mostly from other Arab states''.

''Finding countries 'better' than Egypt is rather difficult because everything depends on the type of focus of investment,'' said the representative of the international consultancy firm for economic development, which has been active worldwide for over 50 years. ''Egypt's ability to implement policies'' that it sets, he said, ''is at the moment controversial and makes investment options less probable''. To the question of what African countries are the safest, Malan said that the 11 previously cited were, adding that ''I would say that South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania and Morocco are the most stable''. Frost & Sullivan is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and has offices in over 40 countries with 800 analysts