Patel outlines integrated Africa vision

INDIVIDUAL African countries were not an attractive target for large international investors, but an integrated Africa would be a game-changer when it came to investment on the continent, Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel said yesterday.

Speaking from Davos where the 48th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is taking place, Patel, who is part of the South African delegation, emphasised the critical role that the integration of African economies had to play in making Africa a major global player.

Patel said the move to create a unified African market spoke to one of the South African government’s key growth pillars, namely integration.

Patel said that work on a free trade programme involving 26 African countries was well under way. “It is the Cape-to-Cairo deal, but a different Cape-to-Cairo than the original of Cecil John Rhodes who had an imperial ambition,” Patel said.

Ambition “We have a different ambition, an Afrocentric ambition that sees African development, and which requires that we overcome the legacy of 54-year-old political boundaries by integrating economies.

“None of those small economies on their own are a compelling proposition to set up large factories and to develop those markets, but taken together, Africa has a billion people and it is projected that by 2035 to have a larger workforce than either China or India, so it is to unlock the opportunity, that is the integration element of it,” he said.

Using South Africa as an example, Patel said that the country – with its estimated 56 million people – was a relatively small economy.

Patel compared South Africa with the larger economies in Europe, which are integrated, and the US, which has always been a big economy. – African News Agency (ANA)