The African Development Bank (AfDB) in its 2011 African Economic Outlook report under the theme:Africa and its emerging partners advises African countries on how to maximise the benefits from Emerging Partners (EPs)
p>The African Development Bank (AfDB) in its 2011 African Economic Outlook report under the theme:Africa and its emerging partners advises African countries on how to maximise the benefits from Emerging Partners (EPs)
The report notes that emerging partners have become a major driver of Africa's growth in recent years.
lt also says that not all countries have engaged equally with emerging partners. The bank with other partners involved in producing the economic outlook such as UNDP, OECD and the Economic Commission for Africa says that African countries should coordinate their engagement strategy regionally, improve their domestic policies and use the increased policy space to strike out better deals in trade, FDI and development assistance.
Some of the outstanding EPs and their trade volume with Africa mentioned in the report include Brazil $17bn, Turkey $16bn, China $93bn, Korea Republic $17bn and India $34bn.
The EPs are identified on the basis of trade and investment flows with Africa.
"China (including Hongkong), India, Korea, Brazil and Turkey are leading the pack," the report notes.
lt says that EPs and traditional partners like the USA and UK are contributing to the exploration of new resources through FDI, supply of affordable consumer goods to Africa and helping to close infrastructure gaps in Africa.
African countries have been advised to improve the domestic policy framework to attract FDI and to benefit from knowledge transfers, develop and coordinate a regional strategy to engage with the EPs and use the increased policy space and greater bargaining power to interact more effectively with both emerging and traditional partners.
Wallace Mawire
