Standard Bank, the biggest bank in Africa by assets, is gearing up to host its first African Markets Conference (AMC).
The Conference, which will be held in Cape Town later this month, is a key element of Standard Bank’s drive to improve integration and ease of doing business across the continent.
“This game-changing conference will provide a tangible platform for crowding in of new capital flows from both on and offshore, uniting global and African sources of capital and risk appetite,” explains Luvuyo Masinda, Chief Executive of Corporate and Investment Banking at Standard Bank Group.
The Conference is being hosted at a time when the nascent African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) established in 2018 has seen broad ratification across 48 countries on the continent. The World Bank estimates that the agreement can potentially increase the continent’s income by $450 billion in just over a decade and increase intra-African exports by more than 81%.
The Conference will also encompass strategic panel discussions made up of diverse representative groupings inclusive of regulators, government representatives and influential people drawn from across the continent.
“As a bank that is focused on the principle of driving continental growth with a unique international reach, this Conference is an important outlet to reiterate our commitment to the continent’s growth leveraging our extensive networks to deliver concrete economic growth solutions that we believe can lead to broader development outcomes,” concludes Masinda.
Mental Prophet
Domestic inflation: The highest inflation rate ever recorded in South Africa was in January 1986, at 20.7%. Some of you may remember those bad days where each wag of P.W. Botha’s finger put an extra percentile to the inflation rate. That year the average inflation rate was 18.7%. During the 2008 financial crisis, South Africa’s inflation rate was 11.5%. In July 2018, the latest official monthly inflation rate was 5.1%. With inflation, this low, production cost increases can be expected to remain low, despite the large hikes in the petrol price. This reduces the perceived risk of starting a business in South Africa. Compared to Venezuela (200 000% inflation rate) we are not doing too badly!