Business

Regional bank confident of deals at investment forum

Johannesburg – The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) expects over 60 deals to be clinched at the
2019 Africa Investment Forum to be held on November 11-13 in Johannesburg.
The DBSA’s Lead Investment relations officer Patrick McGee said they have been holding road shows in various
parts of Africa to identify the 60 projects from 30 countries to be presented at the forum.
“We are optimistic that we will be accelerating the transformation of the continent. We are looking at over 40
billion US dollars’ investment. We are looking at how we can speed up transactions and synergize working with
multinational development world,” said McGee.
The Africa Investment Forum is a co-guarantee and co-financing platform to raise capital and accelerate
investment to transform Africa’s economic, agricultural and industrial sectors.
McGee said that about 38.7 billion dollars’ investments were pledged at last year’s conference, with 10 percent of
it having been concluded.
Last week, pan-African business services company Mara Group launched a smart phone manufacturing plant in
Durban, after making a pledge to invest $100 million in South Africa at the investment forum last year.
“We have gathered enough projects from different sectors like energy, infrastructure and others. We expect more
deals this year,” McGee said.
Nathaniel Munetsi, head of structured finance at Gauteng Infrastructure Financing Agency, said South Africa is
facing increasing fiscal pressure at all levels of the government.
The government is looking forward to working with the private sector to address the infrastructural gap, create
jobs and grow the economy, Munetsi said. Xinhuanet

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