AFRICA
BY ELIZABETH SENGER
Expand Into Africa
The time for investing is now
T
he African property market has long been
earmarked as presenting tremendous
opportunity, as demand for high quality
commercial property continues to grow across the
continent. Together with Africa’s sustained strong
economic growth and rising documented wealth,
more and more major players in global commercial
real estate are considering the continent in their
investment strategies.
Having averaged GDP growth of more than 5%
per annum over the last decade, Africa’s dynamic
economic expansion is expected to continue and is
creating wealthier populations, particularly in the
largest and most rapidly growing urban centres.
Africa’s “mega-cities” such as Lagos, Nairobi, Accra,
Lusaka and Dar es Salaam are increasingly becoming
the drivers of its economic growth and, as a result, are
attracting growing interest from occupiers, developers
and investors.
As a clear indication of Africa’s growing wealth, the
World Bank now classifies 27 of Africa’s 54 nations
as either mid or high-income countries, 12 more than
was the case in 2000.
54
Commercial Handbook 2013
According to Knight Frank’s Africa Report 2013,
city dwellers generally earn more and spend more than
their rural counterparts, and the urban middle class is
growing across much of the continent. This is helping
to create dynamic consumer markets and attracting
overseas investors. A recent survey by the Economist
Intelligence Unit found that institutional investors
now regard the emergence of Africa’s middle class and
its growing consumerism as the most attractive aspect
of investing in Africa, rather than its commodities.
Within the retail sector, the increasing wealth
and sophistication of African consumers is leading
to rising demand for modern retail formats and
western-style shopping centres. Countries such as
Zambia, Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria have seen a wave
of retail construction activity in recent years, which
has delivered the first generation of modern shopping
malls to many major cities. The construction of
further, and larger, shopping centres can be expected,
as developers seek to meet the demand for high quality
retail space from increased numbers of international
retailers entering sub-Saharan markets and major
South African chains pursuing expansion plans
elsewhere in the continent.
www.reimag.co.za