Until recently, access to global financial markets was very limited for most African countries. In the 1990s, only South Africa, Morocco and Tunisia had regular access to international capital markets. However, since the latter half of the 2000-2010 decade, there has been a growing impetus for a number of countries to tap into international capital markets to raise funds for development. Gabon and Ghana first participated in international capital markets in 2007, while the Democratic Republic of Congo undertook a debt exchange in the same year. From 2011, there have been at least four issuances with the Zambian bond placement in September 2012 the latest.

Despite sustained global economic uncertainty, global sovereign wealth funds (SWF) assets have increased to USD5.16 trillion in 2012 from USD3.98 trillion in 2011. There is a strong positive association between the value of total SWF assets and commodity prices. In recent years, with the sustained rise in commodity prices, significant revenues from commodity exports have led to the establishment of SWF in a number of African countries, especially by oil/gas exporters.

In recent years, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activities have become an important channel for investment in Africa for both global and local market players. M&A deals have allowed companies to consolidate their positions in African markets, contributing to better market access and competitiveness.

In recent weeks, three of the world’s largest central banks namely the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan embarked on a new round of monetary easing. This is an unorthodox way of pumping money into the economy and lowering the long-term interest rates in order to combat the recession. Since interest rates in industrial countries had declined to near zero in the aftermath of the global crisis, the scope for further monetary easing through policy rates became very limited. Quantitative easing (QE) and other asset purchase programs have been introduced in modern economic history under exceptional circumstances. The US started implementing QE in 1932 to combat the great depression (USD 1 billion).

The performance of the African aviation industry is still lagging behind those of the rest of the world. Nonetheless, demand for air transport has increased steadily over the past years with passenger numbers and freight traffic growing by 45% and 80%, respectively. Over the period 2010-2015, Africa will be the third fastest growing region in the world in terms of international traffic with an average growth rate of 6.1% compared to the global average of 5.8%, and 7.9% and 6.9% for the Middle East and Asia Pacific, respectively, while Europe, Latin America and North America are projected to record lower international passenger growth of 5.0%, 5.8% and 4.9%, respectively.