Africa’s Infrastructure Spending To Reach $180B By 2025 – PwC

Written by Staff

Jun 22, 2015

According to a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) titled ‘Capital Projects and infrastructure in East Africa, Southern Africa and West Africa: Trends, Challenges and Future Outlook’, infrastructure spending in the region is estimated to grow from US$70 billion in 2014 to US$180 billion per annum by 2025.

The report which presented the findings of a 2014 survey of key players in the infrastructure sector, including donor funds, financiers, government organisations and private companies across East, West and Southern Africa, indicated an opportunity-filled future for infrastructure development in sub-Saharan Africa. The sectors surveyed included water, transport and logistics, energy, mining, telecoms, and real estate, with the main focus being on economic infrastructure.

Highlighting the different stages of development and uniqueness of each country, the report provides insights into the world of infrastructure delivery across African countries and regions in sub-Saharan Africa. It showed the drivers for success, the current thinking and challenges stakeholders are experiencing within the region.

More than half of the respondents indicated that their planned spending on infrastructure, both new projects and refurbishment of assets, would increase by more than 25 per cent from the previous year. They said much of their spending would be focused on new development, with 51 per cent of all respondents planning to spend more than half of their budgets on new assets.

According to the Capital Projects and Infrastructure (CP&I) Leader for PwC Africa, Jonathan Cawood, “The shallow economic recovery in most developed markets has shifted the focus to faster-growing regions. This is also true for the infrastructure development sector. With an abundance of natural resources and recent mineral, oil and gas discoveries, demographic and political shifts and a more investor-friendly environment, the investor spotlight shines brightly on Africa.

“While the recent shift in oil price, currency and internal security challenges may impact in the short term, the fundamentals for growth haven’t changed. Hence we believe the outlook for infrastructure development and economic growth remains positive. A peaceful transition to a new ruling party in the recent elections has injected further optimism and confidence.”