Property Investment in Gambia

The Gambia: Open for Business

A thriving economy founded on a successful private sector is linchpin to The Gambia's governance orientation. It appreciates that a government's only measure of credibility lies in its ability to translate the numeric of economic statistics into food on the peoples' tables, roofs on their heads and security in their minds, all these while guaranteeing a critical level of development commensurate with whatever is internationally apace.

GOOD GOVERNANCE, BIG BUSINESS

With a population of 1.3 million and ticking, The Gambia operates a multiparty, parliamentary democracy committed to the rule of law and a liberal, free market economy. Gaining independence from 200 years of British colonial rule in 1965, it moved to become a republic 5 years later and has since remained a beacon of political stability (though not without its rough rides). The incumbent administration of President Yahya Jammeh was democratically elected in 1996 and he has defined his governance policy in the words of transparency and accountability. Jammeh had, two years earlier, come to power through a military putsch that toppled a government widely regarded as corrupt, redundant and lacking direction.

Inheriting an economy with a natural resource base of about nil, the foundations of which was built around taxes and tariffs, Jammeh's government quickly realised that the only way to achieve meaningful development and augment the country's tiny resource base would be through enhanced private sector development. It would also demand substantial foreign capital injection and the accompanying technological expertise as well as a well-developed human resource base and access into the international market.

The realisation has not faded. Since 1996, The Gambia has vigorously pursued a socio-economic policy committed to free enterprise and private sector development. The nerve of which is the inauguration of "The Gambia incorporated… Vision 2020" initiative, a policy document representing the blueprint designed to guide the country's progress into its envisioned future.
Encapsulated in it is the will and aspiration of the people and government of The Gambia to transform the country into a "financial centre, a tourist paradise, a trading, export-oriented agricultural and manufacturing nation, thriving on free market policies and a vibrant private sector. Sustained by a well-educated, trained, skill, healthy, self reliant and enterprising population."

Wall of Investment Funds Hits Africa

Arnold Ekpe, chief executive of the Ecobank Group, said that the wall of money coming into Africa reflected both genuine reforms and a global hunt for higher yields."Frankly, some of the numbers we're looking at, I haven't seen that in 30 years of banking in Africa," Ekpe said.
Alex Garrard, a UBS managing director responsible for the bank's proprietary and customer trading in exotic fixed-income securities, said he had witnessed a sea change in the last 6 to 9 months in the willingness to invest for the long term in Africa.

Stuart Culverhouse, chief economist at Exotix, said foreign direct investment accounted for virtually all the billion in private capital flows into sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa, in 2005.

Investments in Africa afford low entry levels allowing average investors to take advantage of great returns in a relatively short period of time. Africa, as a whole, is the last undervalued marketplace. These markets, with the exception of South Africa, now sell at bargain basement prices.

Private equity investments in Africa

Private equity is attracting international investors to Africa like never before, with fund after fund being launched in London to look beyond South Africa.

"We don't have to invest in Africa, and we wouldn't have invested in certain African local-currency markets without an improvement in policies over the past few years," said William Ledward, who manages a billion emerging-market fixed-income fund for Franklin Templeton Investments.

Nkosana Moyo, who is partner for Africa at Actis, a British private equity firm that invests in emerging markets, said he plans to raise a new 0 million fund for Africa in the next year.
Moyo said Actis, as an investor with a 10-year horizon, was excited by Africa's opportunities because the continent's new generation of leaders was more at ease with open global markets; the continent, moreover, was home to 20 percent of the world's proven reserves of oil and gas.