A joint venture comprising of General Electric, the Atlas Merchant Capital and Mara Group is seeking to invest in infrastructure sector in Africa.
With the African population poised to grow to 1.5b by 2025, Africa’s economic growth potential is promising. According to a report dubbed Africa 2030, the overall sense is one of progress and optimism and these changes are within sustainable limits hence making Africa a centre of socio-economic focus in the future years.
Africa offers high prospects for growth in power generation, oil, gas and transport and other infrastructure areas such as mining. The joint venture will mainly focus on this broad set of sectors by facilitating access to capital, thus increasing the ability and capacity to finance and fully execute both advanced and early development stage projects.
The challenges to be addressed are rapid growth in urban centers, and an upsurge of the middle class population against shrinking growth of infrastructure.
More than half of African countries including Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ethiopia and the DRC, don’t have access to electricity and an infrastructure investment of US$360b in power generation and transmission, water storage, port capacity, modern railways and modern highways is required until 2040. Furthermore, Africa needs to spend at least US$90b annually for the next decade in order to upgrade and maintain its existing infrastructure alone.
According to Jay Ireland, the president and CEO GE Africa, the joint venture seeks to unite three businesses with a strong expertise and commitment in Africa’s infrastructure. The joint venture is a response towards an integrated infrastructure platform in Africa.
Jay said they proud to partner with the talent and expertise of Atlas Merchant Capital and Mara Group, who have a long experience in Africa, in addressing the needs of African.
Extract from constructionreviewonline.com
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