Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa March/April 2020 | Page 52

AFRICA
Where to
invest in Africa
Top 10 attractive investments
S
outh Africa’s fall to third place in RMB’s 2020 Where to
Invest in Africa report reflects the country’s constrained
levels of growth, but the report also highlights that it
remains Africa’s bastion of a well-developed financial and
capital market. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange is Africa’s
most liquid stock exchange where in excess of US$1.4bn is
traded daily. This is significantly higher than the Cairo Stock
Exchange (Egypt), which trades US$44m a day, underscoring
the depth of South Africa’s capital markets.
South Africa also ranks highly on other measures of financial
market depth such as private credit as a percentage of GDP,
demonstrating that consumers have access to a wider range of
financial instruments relative to other African countries.
Although South Africa’s Ease of Doing Business ranking
has slipped in the last few years, it remains one of the Top 10
easiest operating environments in Africa. This has allowed
international companies to still view South Africa as a gateway
to the rest of the continent.
These positives must, however, be viewed in light of the
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MARCH/APRIL 2020 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine
mounting risks: South Africa is struggling with uninspiring
growth rates. Against a backdrop of modest demand and
persistent electricity constraints, our GDP growth outlook for
South Africa is forecast at 0.6% and 1.0% in 2020 and 2021.
The recovery from previous years, while muted, is premised
on a gradually improving global economic outlook and more
accommodative monetary policy.
Investment attractiveness rankings
“After nine years of publishing, we never fail to be both pleased
and surprised by the extent of improvement in countries
that are not necessarily perceived as strong investment
destinations.”, says Head of RMB Global Markets Research,
Nema Ramkhelawan-Bhana. This year, Guinea, Mozambique
and Djiboutirecorded the strongest gains in the rankings, with
notable advancements in their operating environments.
The rankings are as instructive on the downside, identifying
countries that have either stagnated or outright deteriorated in
one or more aspects of our methodology. South Africa, Ethiopia
and Tanzania are among the more prominent countries to
have taken a tumble. A deterioration in the ease of doing