New Report Ranks Nairobi As Africa’s Most Attractive City For Investment

NAIROBI is the most attractive African city for Foreign Direct Investments and ranks seventh among the continent’s top 20 cities of opportunity, according to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Titled ‘Into Africa – the continent’s cities of opportunity’, the report released yesterday at the African CEO Forum in Geneva highlights the potential of the continent.

“This report assesses how the cities are performing not only on a regional level but also on an international one, which is hugely important in terms of these cities being able to compete and prosper on both of these stages,” said PwC head of strategy for Southern Africa Stanley Subramoney.

In assessing the growth opportunities for the cities, the survey focused on economy, infrastructure, human capital and population.

“We believe that these cities demonstrate the relative strengths and weaknesses of Africa’s urban future. Our evaluation and re-evaluation of that future is, of course, a continual work in progress,” said PwC leader for local government for Southern Africa Kalane Rampai.

Accra is second to Nairobi in terms of attractiveness to FDI, Lagos and Johannesburg tied at position three while Madagascar’s capital city Antananarivo was ranked least attractive to FDI.

Kenya was ranked seventh in general in the cities of opportunity in Africa after assessment of various growth parameters that looked at urbanisation, technological changes, transfer of economic power, demographic and climate changes.

Kigali was the best city in ease of doing business, followed by Johannesburg and Tunis. Angola’s Luanda and DRC’s Kinshasa were second last and last respectively in ease of doing business.

Four of the top five cities in overall ranking of opportunities are from North Africa. They are Cairo, Tunis, Algiers and Casablanca. Johannesburg is the only city in sub-Sahara Africa in the top five.

Cairo is the best city in terms of infrastructure, Tunis was found to be the best in human capital while Casablanca is best in economics.

– See more at: The Star