JOHANNESBURG - The leadership in Gauteng province said on Monday it was ready to host the African Development Bank’s investment forum in November, touting it as a "world-class" initiative that would transform the continent’s development landscape.
The inaugural Africa Investment Forum in Johannesburg will provide a platform to organize efforts among multilateral institutions, governments and the private sector to improve the pipeline of projects that can transform the continent.
"We in Africa are tired of talks about investment after which nothing happens," Gauteng premier David Makhura said after a meeting with African Development Bank president Akinwumi Adesina.
"The African Development Bank is doing in a great job working with other multilateral development partners, private equity funds, the private sector, and governments to crowd in investment into our continent."
He said South Africa would need US$100 billion over the next 10 years for infrastructure development and the forum would offer a place to bring in a pool of capital for projects.
Adesina said the forum would help catalyze private-sector investments in Africa, by bringing in developers, strategic investors, venture capital funds, pension funds, global sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies.
"Africa urgently needs to industrialize. To make this happen, we need investments in infrastructure," Adesina said.
"Africa is not a poor continent. It has vast amounts of resources whose potential simply has to be unlocked. We intend for this to be an investment market place to do transactions with impact.”