A company owned by a member of the Qatari royal family has committed to invest billions of dollars in two South African nations.
Al Mansour Holdings, owned by Sheikh Mansour Bin Jabor Bin Jassim Al Thani, has committed to invest $12 billion across various economic sectors in Botswana.
The deal, signed with state-owned Botswana Development Corporation, will focus on sectors such as infrastructure, energy, mining, diamond refinement, agriculture, tourism, cybersecurity, and defence, President Duma Boko said in a post on Facebook.
“The move will be enough to address immediate challenges facing the country,” he said.
The company also committed to an investment of $19 billion in Zambia, which President Hakainde Hichilema called one of the largest bilateral investment deals.
The deal includes the construction of 1.5 million dwellings, the establishment of a national investment and development bank and investments in agro-processing, irrigation, and export-oriented value chains, state-owned ZNBC Today reported.
Africa has an economy worth $2.8 trillion, a population of 1.4 billion, 65 percent of the world’s arable land and a third of the world’s mineral wealth.
Gulf states have come to regard the continent as crucial to their economic, food and security interests, John Manners-Bell, CEO of Transport Intelligence Insight and founder of Foundation for Future Supply Chain, wrote in AGBI.
The Africa Development Bank (AfDB) estimates that the continent requires $402 billion a year to meet development goals, he said.