What Makes Nigeria The African Growth Story?

Written by Ann Brown

From CNBC Africa

Africa’s growth outlook continues to be robust, with Nigeria having quickly become the leader of the African growth story in 2014.

“One of the big areas is going to be the Fast Moving Consumer Goods sector, second to that the natural resource boom is going to continue growing, and the emergence of the huge middle class that Africa’s [developing],” Shoreline Group Nigeria, CEO Kolade Karim told CNBC Africa.

“With the continuous growth in the financial services sector right across the continent, from banking to insurance, these areas will actually deliver very good sustainable growth on the continent [in] 2014.”

Adding to the exciting growth is the stable macroeconomic environment, and rising internal consumer spending.

According to Martyn Davies, CEO of Frontier Advisory, however, a lot of work still needs to be done in certain areas, such as in security and governance.

“The Africa Rising narrative has largely been underpinned and driven by consumer-facing enterprises. It’s about multinational companies which are seeking to capture consumers, consolidate markets, build their businesses and ultimately create shareholder value,” Davies explained.

“The Africa story is about approximately a billion odd consumers, it’s all around consumer-capturing strategies. [Next] is looking at beyond the sector-specific general business strategies, looking at countries. I think the key story will be Nigeria looking to re-base their GDP, which is long overdue. It’s very likely that Nigeria will become the single largest economy in Africa, supplanting South Africa into number two.”

Written by Wilhelmina Maboja/Read more at CNBC Africa

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