" [1]Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos, Casablanca, London, Beijing; 28 June 2010-Africa investor (Ai), a leading international investment research and communications group, in partnership with The Africa Group (TAG), an Africa-focused consulting, research, and advisory firm, has announced the launch of their ground-breaking Africa Wealth Cheque Report. The Wealth Report has identified US $1.671 trillion of potential wealth and additional production potential in six key sectors (agriculture, water, fisheries, forestry, tourism and human capital). This represents a combined market size today of $909 billion and $762.4bn of additional potential production. The report also estimates current proven stocks of extractable energy resources in Africa (oil, natural gas, coal, and uranium) to be worth between $13-14.5trn. Explaining the Africa Wealth Cheque Report, Hubert Danso, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Africa investor, said: “The aim of the Africa Wealth Cheque Report was to identify and estimate how much natural, economic and human capital wealth is within the continent, in essence to quantify the beginnings of the asset side of Africa’s balance sheet.” Discussing the importance of the report, Danso went on to say, “The report is unique as it is already catalysing debate about how wealthy as opposed to how poor the continent is, and signalling tipping points for African governments and global investors seeking growth opportunities.” Africa investor-TAG say there is nearly three times the average multiple growth potential in the agriculture sector, stemming from projects such as the $780 million Zambezi Integrated Agricultural-Community Development Programme, forestry (to $111bn) and fisheries (to $44bn), and a doubling of the market for water to $25bn. An additional $217bn may be spent on human capital inputs, in terms of wage return growth across the service, industrial and agricultural sectors. “At the highest level, Africa is similar to any other private investment – investors must take on risk to pursue an addressable market opportunity. What makes Africa unique is that incremental dollars invested into Africa will begin to unlock a previously inaccessible market of equal or greater size than Africa today,” says The Africa Group, emphasising that potential returns could be extraordinary.
