04 December 2011

Africa Rising ~ Economist on Emergent Growth...

The latest Economist spotlights Africa Rising and notes how The sun shines bright on the continent's future...
"Over the past decade six of the world’s ten fastest-growing countries were African. In eight of the past ten years, Africa has grown faster than East Asia, including Japan. Even allowing for the knock-on effect of the northern hemisphere’s slowdown, the IMF expects Africa to grow by 6% this year and nearly 6% in 2012, about the same as Asia. [...] Optimism about Africa needs to be taken in fairly small doses, for things are still exceedingly bleak in much of the continent. [...] some fundamental numbers are moving in the right direction. Africa now has a fast-growing middle class: according to the World Bank, around 60m Africans have an income of $3,000 a year, and 100m will in 2015. The rate of foreign investment has soared around tenfold in the past decade. [...] Africa’s enthusiasm for technology is boosting growth. It has more than 600m mobile-phone users -- more than America or Europe. Since roads are generally dreadful, advances in communications, with mobile banking and telephonic agro-info, have been a huge boon. [...] All this is happening partly because Africa is at last getting a taste of peace and decent government. [...] At a dark time for the world economy, Africa’s progress is a reminder of the transformative promise of growth."

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