Foreign Direct Investment in Africa : Policies Also Matter

Morisset, Jacques

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ADMINISTRATIVE BARRIERS;    BANKING SECTOR;    BENCHMARK;    BUSINESS CLIMATE;    BUSINESS COMMUNITY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-2481
RP-ID  :  WPS2481

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Africa has not succeeded in attractingmuch foreign direct investment in the past few decades. Whencountries did attract multinational companies, it wasprincipally because of their (abundant) natural resourcesand the size of their domestic market. Angola, Coted'Ivoire, Nigeria, and South Africa have traditionallybeen the main recipients of foreign direct investment inSub-Saharan Africa. But the author shows that a fewSub-Saharan countries have generated interest amonginternational investors by improving their businessenvironment. In the 1990s, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, andSenegal attracted substantial foreign directinvestment--more so than countries with bigger domesticmarkets (Cameroon, Republic of Congo, and Kenya) and greaternatural resources (Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe). Mali andMozambique, which improved their business climatespectacularly in the 1990s, did so with a few strategicactions: liberalizing trade, launching an attractiveprivatization program, modernizing mining and investmentcodes, adopting international agreements on foreign directinvestment, developing a few priority projects that hadmultiplier effects on other investment projects, andmounting an image-building effort in which political figuressuch as the nation's president participated. Theseactions are similar to those associated with the success ofother small countries with limited natural resources, suchas Ireland and Singapore about 20 years ago.