Middle East and Africa strengthen investment ties

The Africa Middle East- Investment Forum opened business opportunities in Africa and Middle East as a practical and significant stride towards launching new markets that will encourage investments and trade between the two regions.

On areas in which Africa and Middle East should pursue stronger economic ties, he highlighted Oil & Gas. Africa’s O&G reserves are estimated at over 200 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Given the H.E Abdullah Ahmed Al Saleh, the Undersecretary, Ministry of Foreign Trade-Deputy Minister, United Arab Emirates, said, “Since our regions are both aggressively pursuing economic diversification, we should look into mutually beneficial investment areas”.

He said that a growth factor that they are particularly focusing on is the private sector, which they recognise as the core source of the regional development. Through forums such as these we hope to provide better access to Africa and other major global markets for our industries.

H.E noted the Middle East is very attracted to potentially high-return in African investment and noted that some countries in the region have been coming up with new regulations intended to make doing business with us easier and more fruitful investors. In UAE for example, he said that they are making changes to the companies’ law that will expand foreign ownership opportunities in some sectors and drive down business setup costs, among others.

Aside from Middle East’s experience in the O&G domain, there are numerous investment, technology transfer, manpower and consultancy prospects that can be explored such as real estate and construction, clean energy, logistics and transportation banking, retailing, agriculture, construction, renewable energy and telecommunications. He said that these opportunities should be discussed thoroughly between both sides in this forum and in other avenues.