‘Africa can be next

PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Africa will be the next eco­nom­ic pow­er­house of the world.

This was the pro­jec­tion made by Ghana In­vest­ment Pro­mo­tion Cen­tre CEO, Regi­nald Yofi Grant, dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion dur­ing the 21st An­nu­al Trans-At­lantic Trade and In­vest­ment Sym­po­sium, held at the Trinidad Hilton Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, St Ann’s, on Mon­day.

He ex­plained that based on the con­ti­nent’s re­sources, it was well placed to emerge as an eco­nom­ic hot bed par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the en­er­gy tran­si­tion cur­rent­ly be­ing un­der­tak­en.

“Why is Africa so im­por­tant? Africa to­day stands to hold not less than 40 per cent of the world’s re­main­ing min­er­al re­sources, 90 per cent of the world’s plat­inum; 90 per cent of the world’s chromi­um and 90 per cent of the world’s cobalt, not to men­tion a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of the world’s lithi­um, man­ganese, cop­per, iron ore, baux­ite.

And why is that very im­por­tant? Be­cause the world to­day, be­cause of sus­tain­abil­i­ty and cli­mate change would re­quire these sig­nif­i­cant min­er­als for en­er­gy tran­si­tions,” said Grant.

As he re­sult, he ex­pect­ed the world to turn to Africa soon­er, rather than lat­er.

“So for me and for many oth­ers who un­der­stand the dy­nam­ics of glob­al eco­nom­ic growth, Africa, the con­ti­nent of Africa to­day and mark my words, it is Africa that is go­ing to trig­ger the next wave of growth in the glob­al econ­o­my. That is where it’s go­ing to start,” said Grant, who al­so point­ed out that by 2040, much of the Africa would have the largest work­ing age pop­u­la­tion in the world.

Trade Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon said there was room for im­proved trade be­tween the Caribbean and Africa.

She said, “Look­ing at Cari­com/Africa trade, why have ex­ports and goods not in­creased over time. The re­al­i­ty is in 2022 it on­ly ac­counts for 3 per cent of the re­gion’s ex­ports, with these be­ing heav­i­ly dom­i­nat­ed by en­er­gy prod­ucts from T&T.

“T&T’s ex­ports to Africa were val­ued at US$769 mil­lion for the top re­ceiv­ing des­ti­na­tions be­ing Ghana Mo­roc­co, Sene­gal, South Africa, and An­go­la. Africa on the oth­er hand, ex­port­ed US$290 in 2020. To be the top ex­porters been Nige­ria, South Africa and An­go­la. This is for Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

She ex­plained there was ex­port po­ten­tial be­tween both re­gions in var­i­ous sec­tors in­clud­ing health­care, tourism, fer­tilis­ers and au­to­mo­biles.

She said, “The Caribbean in turn could boost its ex­ports of goods to Africa. By US$80 mil­lion, which is a 29 per cent in­crease. The da­ta there­fore shows that there is sig­nif­i­cant room and im­mense po­ten­tial to be un­locked in ex­pand­ing and di­ver­si­fy­ing trade and in­vest­ments.”