Publications
Partners
- US firms have announced multiple billions of investments into the African continent.
- It is believed that theUS-Africa Leaders Summit taking place between 13 and 15 December will yield $15 billion worth of deals.
- US Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, said the economic powerhouse plans to invest in Africa on a scale it has never done before.
- For more stories, go to the News24 Business front page.
American firms have pledged billions of US dollars to projects across Africa in the ongoing US-Africa Leaders Summit. Visa plans to spend $1 billion (R17 billion) across all 54 African countries, expanding its footprint and technology platforms in the next five years. Some of the money will go towards local strategic partnerships with governments, local financial institutions, mobile operators, FinTech, and merchants.
Announcing the investment during the summit on Wednesday, the CEO of Visa Inc, Alfred Kelly Jr., said that while there are more than 100 million people in Africa with Visa cards and 2 million merchants accepting them, the financial giant believes that there is still so much more to do in the continent.
"Today, Visa is announcing that we are going to make a $1 billion investment in Africa over the next five years. That investment will go towards scaling our operations across the continent; it will go towards driving innovation in technology," he said, adding that Africa will be critical to Visa's growth in the next 50 years.
READ | US, Africa face-off at Biden summit, with SA's preferential market access up in the air
Prosper Africa, a US government initiative aimed at increasing trade and investment between the US and African countries, committed to investing $170 million – pending funding availability. This money will be invested alongside US and African companies and investors as the organisation plans to mobilise an additional $1 billion investment from US firms. It also announced five new partnerships with African asset fund managers under a new Catalytic Investment Facility.
It will work with Fund for Africa's Future, Altree Capital, Endeavor South Africa, Okavango Capital, and ThirdWay Partners to invest in small businesses and entrepreneurs that work in the space of climate change and gender inequality, among other things. Prosper Africa plans to mobilise more than $200 million in private capital for that initiative.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) committed to investing "multiple million dollars" to make basketball and the NBA more accessible in the continent. This includes the expansion of the NBA Africa's multiyear agreement with ESPN Africa to air games in Africa and the launch of Africa's first NBA store in Sandton City in October. The NBA has also announced plans to launch its fourth African office in Cairo, Egypt, in early 2023.
Standard Bank and GE Healthcare announced that they will work together to finance up to $80 million of GE equipment to Standard Bank customers across the continent over the next five years, with a focus on South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Mozambique, and Angola.
Other US companies that announced investment commitments include the ABD Group, which is establishing new data centres across the continent, investing $500 million in the process. mPharma is investing $43 million in Nigeria. US-based startup KoBold Metals and its partners will invest $150 million to support a copper mine in Zambia. Power Africa, in partnership with Prosper Africa, launched a new initiative called the US-Africa Clean Tech Energy Network, which will invest $350 million in the next five years in project-ready technologies that can increase access to reliable electricity.
US Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, said US investors are more interested in Africa, especially after the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) last year. And because of this, relations between Africa and the US will be shaped more by commercial ties than ever before.
"I hear continuously, and increasingly, from US businesses, entrepreneurs and investors, that they are increasingly interested in investing in the African continent. I hear it regularly," she said.
READ | OPINION | Where the money comes from and where it goes: A lot hinges on AfCFTA investment protocols
She said the fact that the AfCFTA has paved the way to integrate Africa as a single market has created "a huge amount of excitement". She said that because of these exciting developments, US President Joe Biden has taken "unprecedented steps" to ramp up the US government's engagements with American businesses about investing more in Africa.
"At the Commerce Department, we, too, are raising our game to grow US businesses' engagement in Africa. We are going to increase our physical presence on the continent, [we'll have] more commerce personnel on the continent," she said.
Raimondo said she plans to travel to the continent in 2023 and will bring American business leaders with her. She said that because of the "huge potential" the US sees, $15 billion of deals will be announced over the course of the summit.
"And I think we are just getting going," she added. "I plan to lead my team, bringing in the US private sector and really leaning into the moment of opportunity that's before us in a way that we've never done before and at a scale we've never done before," she added.
