Persian Gulf States Bet On Africa Despite Downturn
非洲或许即将面临大宗商品泡沫的破裂，不过腰包依然鼓鼓的海湾国家投资者却在加大对非洲的投资。近几个月里全球金融危机最严重的时候，海湾国家投资者承诺向撒哈拉以南非洲地区投资数十亿美元。这正值大部分发达国家陷入衰退，而几乎其他各地的增长都急剧放缓，威胁着其他大部分跨境投资的时候。国际货币基金组织(IMF)仍预测，今年撒哈拉以南非洲地区经济增长3.5%，2010年增长5%。当然，这个地区实现增长的能力依赖于中东投资者兑现他们的承诺。除援助资金外，富裕的工业化国家在非洲几乎没有什么投入。过去两年中，每年非洲大陆的外商直接投资都只有全球总量的3%，包括购买资产或创建企业，而非洲人口却是世界总人口的12%。然而，今天的不景气甚至让这点儿投资都受到了威胁。海湾石油生产国的日子也不好过。油价暴跌，迪拜等地的房地产市场萎靡不振。（迪拜周日表示，阿联酋联邦政府将向其提供100亿美元的融资，这样迪拜就能为自己的巨额债务支付利息了。）如果形势进一步恶化，海湾国家投资者可能将不得不减少在非洲的投资。Associated Press吉布提的人们本月早些时候庆祝Doraleh集装箱码头投入使用，这个项目是由迪拜援建的。外来投资者──特别是曾经是非洲殖民者的欧洲人──对非洲的关注反复无常，这让很多非洲国家领导人失望不已，他们因此非常欢迎来自波斯湾的白衣骑士。阿拉伯投资者不仅对吸引了西方和亚洲投资者的矿业和油田感兴趣，对港口农业和电信业也有兴趣。吉布提总统盖莱(Ismail Guelleh)说，阿拉伯人为我们所做的事情本是那些殖民者应该做的。多亏了海湾国家的投资，这个位于非洲东部地区的小国经济出现了好转。海湾国家的投资流可能会增强阿拉伯国家在非洲的经济和政治影响。美国的非洲事务官员把来自阿拉伯世界的资金流视为一种积极的趋势。非洲的一些人则认为中东的资金是平衡对中国依赖的一种力量。肯尼亚总统齐贝吉(Moi Kibaki)去年说，阿拉伯人不只对获取东西有兴趣，暗指中国企业喜欢在自然资源方面做交易。据总部位于迪拜的海湾研究中心(Gulf Research Center)的数据，2007年至2008年年中，海湾国家及其政府支持的公司实体在撒哈拉以南非洲地区的外商直接投资为150亿美元。相比之下，北京在过去10年中向非洲投资高达400亿美元。不过其中大部分投资都是以双边援助和项目融资的方式进行的，旨在尽可能地增强贸易关系。据联合国贸易开发会议最新可获得的数据，2007年，撒哈拉以南非洲地区共获得外商直接投资430亿美元，其中只有60亿美元来自中国。中东投资者在非洲达成了很多交易，其中迪拜国有企业集团Dubai World上个月宣布，公司正在尼日利亚谈判一桩数十亿美元的能源交易。去年12月，卡塔尔提出向肯尼亚提供35亿美元贷款，用于建设一个深水港和改造沿海公路。科威特Mobile Telecommunications Co.旗下的手机公司Zain Group上周推出计划，将在东非建立基于手机的银行服务网络。该公司已经在16个非洲国家开展了业务，去年11月曾表示愿意花40亿美元在非洲进行并购。对于阿布达比迪拜和卡塔尔等来说，撒哈拉以南非洲地区是个有待开发的巨大市场，遍地是廉价的资产。距离中东的大本营也相对较近，两个地区长期以来就有贸易往来。海湾国家的企业还把它们在非洲的资产看作是一种对冲措施，能够对冲最近在欧美银行和房地产交易上的损失。沙特阿拉伯私人投资者在苏丹开了银行，还在那里签订了农业协议。拉斯阿尔卡麦(Ras Al Khaimah)目前正在刚果民主共和国修建居民区。它和知名度更高的迪拜及阿布达比都是阿联酋的酋长国。DP World首席执行长拉夫(Mohammed Sharaf)本月早些时候去吉布提参加公司新集装箱码头的开业典礼时说，对我们来说，现在的非洲和六个月之前一样重要。这个集装箱码头是撒哈拉以南非洲地区规模最大的。Margaret Coker相关阅读科威特头号投行偿债违约 激发普遍担忧 2009-01-09
Africa may be bracing for a commodities bust, but the still-rich investors of the Persian Gulf are doubling down here.Through the worst of the global financial crisis in recent months, Gulf investors have committed to pouring billions of dollars into sub-Saharan Africa. The timing comes just as recessions in much of the developed world, and sharply slowing growth almost everywhere else, threaten most other cross-border investment flows. Indeed, sub-Saharan Africa's ability to grow -- the International Monetary Fund still projects the region's economy will expand 3.5% this year and 5% in 2010 -- depends on the Middle Eastern investors carrying through on their commitments.Apart from aid money, rich industrialized countries have spent little on Africa. In each of the past two years, the continent, which has 12% of the world's population, has attracted only 3% of global foreign-direct investment, which includes buying assets or setting up businesses. Today's downturn threatens even that outlay.The Arab world's petrostates are also suffering. Oil prices have tumbled, and real-estate markets in places like Dubai are in the dumps. (Sunday, the city-state said the federal government of the United Arab Emirates would provide it with $10 billion in funding, allowing Dubai to service its heavy debt load.) If things get worse, these investors may have to rein in their Africa bets.Many African leaders, frustrated by the mercurial attention paid by outside investors, especially their former European colonizers, have embraced white knights from the Persian Gulf. Arab investors are interested in ports, agriculture and telecommunications, as well as the minerals and oil patches that have attracted Western and Asian investors.'What the Arabs are doing for us is what colonialists should have done for Africa,' said Djibouti President Ismail Guelleh, whose sliver of a nation on the Horn of Africa is enjoying an economic turnaround thanks primarily to Gulf money.The stream of Gulf investment could boost Arab states' economic and political clout in Africa. U.S. officials involved in Africa view money flows from the Arab world as a positive trend. And some in Africa view Middle Eastern money as a counterweight to dependence on China. The Arabs 'aren't just interested in taking things,' Kenyan President Moi Kibaki said last year, alluding to the natural-resource deals that Chinese firms favor.From 2007 until mid-2008, Gulf states and their government-backed corporate entities spent $15 billion in foreign direct investment in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. By contrast, Beijing has poured as much as $40 billion into the region over the past decade. But most of that has come in the form of bilateral aid and project financing aimed at maximizing trade relations. China contributed just $6 billion of the $43 billion in foreign direct investment in sub-Saharan Africa for all of 2007, the latest figures available from the United Nations Agency for Trade and Development.Among the many deals put together by Middle Eastern investors, Dubai World, the Gulf emirate's state-owned conglomerate, last month announced it was negotiating a multibillion-dollar energy-sector deal in Nigeria. In December, Qatar offered a $3.5 billion loan to Kenya to build a deepwater port and rebuild coastal roads.Zain Group, a cellphone company owned by Kuwait's Mobile Telecommunications Co., unveiled plans last week for a mobile-phone-based banking network across East Africa. The company already operates in 16 African countries, and it said in November that it was willing to spend $4 billion on acquisitions in Africa.For places like Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Qatar, sub-Saharan Africa is a vast, untapped market full of cheap assets. It is relatively close to home, and the two regions enjoy longstanding trade ties. Gulf companies also view their assets in Africa as a hedge against recent losses racked up in U.S. and European banking and real-estate deals.Private Saudi investors have opened banks in Sudan and signed agricultural deals there. Ras Al Khaimah -- one of the emirates that, along with better-known Dubai and Abu Dhabi, make up the U.A.E. -- is building residential communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo.'Africa is as important to us now as it was six months ago,' Mohammed Sharaf, DP World's chief executive, said during a trip earlier this month to Djibouti for the opening of the company's new container terminal, the largest in sub-Saharan Africa.Margaret Coker
Africa may be bracing for a commodities bust, but the still-rich investors of the Persian Gulf are doubling down here.Through the worst of the global financial crisis in recent months, Gulf investors have committed to pouring billions of dollars into sub-Saharan Africa. The timing comes just as recessions in much of the developed world, and sharply slowing growth almost everywhere else, threaten most other cross-border investment flows. Indeed, sub-Saharan Africa's ability to grow -- the International Monetary Fund still projects the region's economy will expand 3.5% this year and 5% in 2010 -- depends on the Middle Eastern investors carrying through on their commitments.Apart from aid money, rich industrialized countries have spent little on Africa. In each of the past two years, the continent, which has 12% of the world's population, has attracted only 3% of global foreign-direct investment, which includes buying assets or setting up businesses. Today's downturn threatens even that outlay.The Arab world's petrostates are also suffering. Oil prices have tumbled, and real-estate markets in places like Dubai are in the dumps. (Sunday, the city-state said the federal government of the United Arab Emirates would provide it with $10 billion in funding, allowing Dubai to service its heavy debt load.) If things get worse, these investors may have to rein in their Africa bets.Many African leaders, frustrated by the mercurial attention paid by outside investors, especially their former European colonizers, have embraced white knights from the Persian Gulf. Arab investors are interested in ports, agriculture and telecommunications, as well as the minerals and oil patches that have attracted Western and Asian investors.'What the Arabs are doing for us is what colonialists should have done for Africa,' said Djibouti President Ismail Guelleh, whose sliver of a nation on the Horn of Africa is enjoying an economic turnaround thanks primarily to Gulf money.The stream of Gulf investment could boost Arab states' economic and political clout in Africa. U.S. officials involved in Africa view money flows from the Arab world as a positive trend. And some in Africa view Middle Eastern money as a counterweight to dependence on China. The Arabs 'aren't just interested in taking things,' Kenyan President Moi Kibaki said last year, alluding to the natural-resource deals that Chinese firms favor.From 2007 until mid-2008, Gulf states and their government-backed corporate entities spent $15 billion in foreign direct investment in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. By contrast, Beijing has poured as much as $40 billion into the region over the past decade. But most of that has come in the form of bilateral aid and project financing aimed at maximizing trade relations. China contributed just $6 billion of the $43 billion in foreign direct investment in sub-Saharan Africa for all of 2007, the latest figures available from the United Nations Agency for Trade and Development.Among the many deals put together by Middle Eastern investors, Dubai World, the Gulf emirate's state-owned conglomerate, last month announced it was negotiating a multibillion-dollar energy-sector deal in Nigeria. In December, Qatar offered a $3.5 billion loan to Kenya to build a deepwater port and rebuild coastal roads.Zain Group, a cellphone company owned by Kuwait's Mobile Telecommunications Co., unveiled plans last week for a mobile-phone-based banking network across East Africa. The company already operates in 16 African countries, and it said in November that it was willing to spend $4 billion on acquisitions in Africa.For places like Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Qatar, sub-Saharan Africa is a vast, untapped market full of cheap assets. It is relatively close to home, and the two regions enjoy longstanding trade ties. Gulf companies also view their assets in Africa as a hedge against recent losses racked up in U.S. and European banking and real-estate deals.Private Saudi investors have opened banks in Sudan and signed agricultural deals there. Ras Al Khaimah -- one of the emirates that, along with better-known Dubai and Abu Dhabi, make up the U.A.E. -- is building residential communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo.'Africa is as important to us now as it was six months ago,' Mohammed Sharaf, DP World's chief executive, said during a trip earlier this month to Djibouti for the opening of the company's new container terminal, the largest in sub-Saharan Africa.Margaret Coker