Resource for Africa?

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On February 25, 2008, President George W. Bush that the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) would support five new private equity investment funds, with a combined target capitalization of $875 million, designed to invest in a variety of sectors vital to Africa’s economic development, including health care, housing, telecommunications and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The new commitments represent the largest single-day announcement in the history of the agency’s investment funds program.

“Last year, we launched the Africa Financial Sector Initiative. As part of this effort, OPIC mobilized $750 million in investment capital for African businesses,” President Bush said in a speech on the eve of his February 15-21 trip to Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and Liberia. “Today, I'm announcing that OPIC will support five new investment funds that will mobilize an additional $875 million, for a total of more than $1.6 billion in new capital.”

“The new era is rooted in a powerful truth: Africa's most valuable resource is not its oil, it's not its diamonds, it is the talent and creativity of its people. So we are partnering with African leaders to empower their people to lift up their nations and write a new chapter in their history…The best way to generate economic growth in Africa is to expand trade and investment,” President Bush said.

OPIC President and CEO Robert Mosbacher, Jr. said, “Establishment of these five new investment funds represents additional, tangible support for Africa, but with a dynamic focus on the social aspects of economic development and job creation on the continent.”

“These funds will encourage the growth of sectors critical to Africa’s ongoing development, such as housing and telecommunications, as well as other developmental sectors, including health care and small businesses. Their overall impact will be to broaden African capital markets and provide critical investment for social development, a model that can be replicated in other geographic areas.”
OPIC’s Board of Directors approved financing to support the funds at its January 31 meeting. More information about OPIC’s Africa-related investment funds can be found http://www.opic.gov/investment/participating/africa/index.asp

Three of the new OPIC-supported funds will help to bring new levels of efficiency and productivity to sectors critical to the continent’s continued economic growth: health care, housing development and telecommunications. The two other funds will support the growth of Africa’s debt capital markets and its SME sector.

Source: www.opic.gov