Botswana named best African investment destination
Pauline Dikuelo | Friday April 21, 2017 17:42
The index noted that this was possible as Botswana ranked highly in factors that include current account, improved credit rating, import cover as well as ease of doing business.
Out of the 54 African countries that participated in the survey, Botswana took the first position followed by Morrocco in second spot, with Egypt third while the neighbouring South Africa took fourth spot followed by Zambia. Other countries that made it in the top ten include Cote d’Ivoire, Algeria, Tanzania, Namibia and Burkina Faso respectively.
“The annual research is aimed at providing investors in Africa with a guide to which countries and markets are most attractive for investment in the short to medium term. The multidimensional barometer was based on six clusters of factors namely growth factors, risk factors, liquidity factors, business environment factors, social capital factors and demographics,” read part of the report.
Still on the same research, last year Botswana took the fifth position, while the year before the country obtained the third spot and fourth in 2013. According to the index, Botswana was scored the first position in the credit ranking category, the second position in the import cover, current access ratio as well as the fourth position in the ease of doing business.
The report also indicated that Botswana is doing well in terms of embracing technology as the country scored position nine in the Facebook penetration under the social capital ranking which accounts for the level of networks, knowledge and connections.
“Facebook penetration rate is used as a proxy for this social capital factor. Indeed a user of the index can also customise the business environment factors by incorporating their quality of networks in a country by adjusting the doing business ranking of the country. The social capital factor is an innovation,” reads the report.
In the global rankings, Botswana is ranked position 71 out of 190 economies in the ease of doing business, according to the World Bank’s latest Doing Business rankings that was released late last year.
The report then noted that Botswana’s position on Doing Business has been steady over the past several years noting that last year the country implemented a reform in the area of dealing with construction permits by abolishing the requirement to submit a rates clearance certificate in order to obtain building permit.