Africa is on the verge of becoming the engine of global economic growth, the Chairman, United Bank for Africa Plc and Founder, Tony Elumelu Foundation, Mr. Tony Elumelu, has said.
He said this while delivering a key note address on the topic: ‘Entrepreneur-led development: A new model for Africa’, at the Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States.
Elumelu, who had earlier delivered a speech at the White House in Washington DC at an event hosted by President Barack Obama on Monday to celebrate emerging entrepreneurs around the globe, said Africa was offering investors one of the highest returns on capital in the world, which had made the continent one of the best places to be an entrepreneur globally.
Citing UBA as an example of African-owned business doing great on the continent, he said, “The United Bank for Africa, which I chair, employs about 12,000 people and provides banking and financial services to eight million Africans and businesses in 19 African countries, with a presence in Paris, London, and New York.
“The platform provided by UBA across Africa and the globe enables individuals to save and carry out seamless transactions across the world. UBA supports businesses to secure the capital they require to grow, and drives intra-African trade and investment on scales previously unheard of.”
He also cited MTN as another example of an African company that had grown into a multi-billion dollar telecommunications company operating in 17 countries on the continent as well as Europe and Asia, enabling hundreds of millions of individuals and their businesses to communicate with their families, customers and markets.
Another noteworthy example, according to Elumelu, is Dangote Cement, which is operating in six African countries and helping to build the continent, one brick at a time.
He said a soon-to-be released book entitled: ‘Africans Investing in Africa’, a research partnership between the Tony Elumelu Foundation and the Oppenheimer family’s Brenthurst Foundation, would reveal how many African companies were creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in different countries and contributing to the integration of the continent each day.
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