Africa needs to work hard to attract more Arab investments in the agriculture sector and benefit from its potential for agriculture.
Since Arab countries lack favorable weather and land for agriculture, they are considering other ways to meet the local demand for agricultural products. This includes engaging in commercial farming in other parts of the world mainly Africa.
This is a great opportunity for Africa, which has a huge potential for agriculture and it needs to exploit this opportunity.
Permanent Representative of League of Arab States to AU and UNECA Saleh Sahboun said Africa needs to implement special strategies and plans of action to create the desired enabling atmosphere.
Creating enabling environment and promoting what it has are important. “Africans have to make a good environment and good legislation to attract those capitals. At the same time, they also have to keep contact with investors to make them understand that the environment for investment, the law, the people and the potential of the country are very convenient to those investments.”
Saying economic growth is one of the means to attract more foreign investment, Mr Sahboun said Ethiopia in this regard has managed to catch the attention of more investment from the Arab and the rest of the world.
Ethiopia is the leading destination for Arab investments in Africa, saying: “In Ethiopia we have top investment, the Saudi investment, the Sudan investment, the Emirati investment, the Libyan investment and there are others.”
The Permanent Representative was talking after the Africa-Arab Legislators and Business Summit held here during the weekend.
Addressing corruption and bureaucracy, and improving infrastructure networks are among the major tasks awaiting African governments to attract more investment from the Arab world.
Dr. Fahad Bin Mohammed Joma, member of the Saudi Arabia’sShoora said geographical proximity and Africa’s enormous potential make increasing flow of Arab investment inevitable.
To exploit this opportunity, African nations need to find out the desire of the Arab world and make adjustments to make their countries preferred destination, Dr. Fahad said.
“Africans should look at what the Arabs really need, for example if you look at the Gulf area, they have a lot of money. So what they really need especially with agricultural products. You know in the Gulf area they have a problem in water supply and also the weather, so we can invest more in agriculture products and this is what African countries should focus on and make it easy to the money to flow from Arabs and Gulfs to African countries.”
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