Asia poised to play dominant role in Africa's future growth

WEAKER global outlook and the impact of Brexit have created uncertainty around growth prospects. The impact weighs heavy on the world economic outlook with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicting advanced economies will grow by only 0.2 per cent from 1.9 to 2.1 per cent and hold steady in 2017. Against this backdrop of lethargic economic performance, some developing economies still show strong growth potential.

Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to post growth of 4.1 per cent in 2017 and 5.2 per cent in 2018, demonstrating resilience in the face of the global economic slowdown and subdued commodity prices. Africa's structural growth drivers - which include its attractive demographics, urbanisation and rise in consumerism - remain intact. The rising middle class with increasing purchasing capacity and growing consumption are attracting investors' attention in markets such as South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. The growth of fintech firms and online lenders in the region is also helping to support the middle-class segment by enabling better access to credit.

The power sector is another example of attractive opportunity in the continent - Africa has about 13 per cent of the world's population, but half of this population does not have access to electricity. In comparison, over 80 per cent of the Indian population has access to electricity.