10 Years - Frontier Markets Delivered GDP Growth

ZIN BEKKALI
CEO & Group CIO

United in our convictions, we created Silk Invest in the middle of the economic crisis of 2008. A lot has happened since then and we have published a note-taking stock of the markets and highlighting some of the key events:

One of the major points to highlight is the strong GDP growth that has been achieved in our core Frontier and African Markets. Frontier Markets were able to grow their GDP in USD terms by 70% while Africa increased its GDP by 66%. As a reference, the US increased its GDP by 37%. This GDP growth translated to an increase of GDP by Capita of 40% in the case of Frontier Markets. Significantly bigger economies with a much larger domestic consumer base. In normal circumstances, this should have been the formula for attracting more investor capital.

CLICK ON THE COVER TO VIEW THE SPECIAL REPORT

The last 10 years have however been anything but normal. International investors are at the sidelines and allocations did not materially increase from the post-crisis lows. The net result is that equity markets are not pricing in yet any of the positive developments in our markets. Markets were disappointing over the last 10 years but we believe that we are on the verge of a long-term positive cycle driven by a number of catalysts.

We will highlight additional points on this topic from our document in the coming days and we will be visiting a number of European cities to share our insights. Please reach out to me or my colleagues if you want to discuss more in detail.

Last but not least, many thanks to all our partners who have invested with us. It is a great honor to work with all of you and our team is looking forward to continuing on this trajectory of shared values and vision.