UK-Africa Investment Summit signed deals over £6.5 billion, More urge on investors to boost biz

The President of Egypt, Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson inaugurated the UK-Africa Investment Summit on Monday, January 20, 2020 in London. The UK-Africa Investment Summit is witnessing the participation of 21 African heads of state including a good number of investors and businessmen from Britain and African nations.

At the UK-Africa Investment Summit 2020 in London, Boris Johnson and Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi made their appeals for bigger investments in Africa and called for increased and renewed partnership  between  the UK and Africa. According to them, the companies based in the United Kingdom must leap at the chance to deepen economic ties with Africa, a continent with unmatched investment opportunities, several African leaders said at a high-level panel.

“Look around the world today and you will swiftly see that the UK is not only the obvious partner of choice, we’re also very much the partner of today, of tomorrow and decades to come,” Boris Johnson said.

Hosted by the UK Government, the UK-Africa Investment Summit 2020 has been attended by the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, the international development secretary, Alok Sharma, and Prince Harry. The President of Ghana, Nana Akufo Addo, of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, of Mauritania, Mohamed Ould Cheikh el Ghazouani,  African  Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina, and Secretary of State for International Development, MP Alok Sharma, addressed a plenary panel discussion on ‘Sustainable Finance and Infrastructure – Unlocking the City of London and UK financial services for growth in Africa.’

The UK-Africa Investment Summit 2020 finished today with signed deals worth more than £6.5 billion, tweeted UK Foreign Office’s official Twitter handle. “We started the day with £6.5 billion of deals and have ended with billions more. That is thanks to people in this room. The UK Government has announced over £1.5 billion of new initiatives. We expect these to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. And mobilise over £2.4 billion of private investment for African countries, something that every speaker has said we need more of,” said Alok Sharma, a British politician, serving as the Secretary of State for International Development since July 2019.

“The City of London can play a significant role in bridging Africa’s huge infrastructure gap… and LSE can be a pivot in the new relationship with the continent. Indeed, 1 in 4 consumers will live in Africa by 2030,” Ghana’s President, Nana Akufo-Addo said while responding to a question about the partnerships between the UK and Ghana.

On the other hand, the African Development Bank’s President, Akinwumi Adesina announced a new $80 million Bank-DFID infrastructure financing partnership. According to him, the continent’s $68-$108 billion infrastructure investment gap per year is massive, but it depends on how you look at it. “Either the cup is half full or half empty. To us, that is a $68-$108 billion opportunity.”

“The issue of risk in Africa is exaggerated. The risk of loss is lower than Latin America. Yet, funds are not being channeled into Africa. There are $8 trillion of assets under management in London, but only 1 percent is invested in Africa,” Adesina added.