Economic strategies to win in a dynamic global landscape

For Sola David-Borha, the continent has a young population with a growing labour force and is expected to have the world's largest working-age population of 1.1 billion by 2034.

It is a continent that is still urbanizing, and much of the economic benefits lies ahead. By 2030 more than 50 percent of the population will be in cities.

“Projections indicate that the African continent will spend $ 2 trillion by 2025. Urban expansion is contributing to the rapid growth of housing and businesses”, said Sola David-Borha, adding that African economies are also well positioned to benefit from rapidly acceleration in technological change enabling better costs management in doing business.

Therefore, penetration of smartphones is expected to hit the 50% mark in 2020 from only 2% in 2010. East Africa is already a global leader in mobile payments.

Regarding the economic situation in Mozambique, Sola David-Borha indicated that the country has the highest sovereign debt to GDP of over 100 percent, compared to other countries in the southern region. Zimbabwe and South Africa stand at 84.2 and 51.7 percent, respectively.

“But for Mozambique there is hope in this turbulent period, since it has natural gas reserves that raise the energy profile of the country to rank as the seventh largest reserve in the world”, she said.

This discovery, as she highlighted, could add $ 39 billion to the economy by 2035, and there is the need to invest more in sophisticated entrepreneurial skills, manufacturing, banking, services and industries so that it can compete in the world and benefit Mozambicans.

According to Sola David Borha, investment opportunities in Mozambique should not stop there, as there are some sectors worth investing in, namely agribusiness and infrastructures.

While, in the near future, the infrastructure sector will demand a continued construction of new buildings and transport facilities, including roads, in agribusiness there is great potential given the extent of unused arable land (85% according to the Centre for Agricultural Promotion).

“The country still imports more than it exports in various agricultural sectors and has the third highest consumption of rice in SADC, most of which is imported”, said the panellist, adding that transport capacity and logistics remains the biggest challenge in the country.

As strategies to thrive in this dynamic global landscape, the CEO of Standard Bank Group Africa pointed out the need to rebuild trust of cooperation partners and to implement stable fiscal policies to enable business-friendly environment.

The implementation of prudent fiscal policies to stimulate economic growth, review of monetary policies to stimulate growth and stability, the removal of unnecessary barriers and regulations, and the opening up the market for foreign investors are also included in the recommendations made by Sola David-Borha.