Frontier Advisory Chief Executive Officer Martyn Davies on Thursday said the ongoing World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa 2013 will provide a crucial networking opportunity to boost business on the continent.
Frontier Advisory is a research, strategy and investment advisory firm that assists clients to improve their competitiveness in emerging market economies.
With a theme of "Delivering on Africa's Promise", the three-day summit which began on Wednesday will deal with three topics -- Accelerating Economic Diversification, Boosting Strategic Infrastructure and Unlocking Africa's Talent.
"It (the meeting) is also setting the tone for commercial engagement of the continent whilst providing an excellent platform for countries to strategically market themselves," Martyn Davies who is attending the meeting told Xinhua.
The summit brings together heads of state and government, eminent persons and captains of commerce and industry from Africa and the world to deliberate on matters affecting the global economy, with a special focus on Africa.
The WEF is taking place in South Africa just more than one month after the country hosted the 5th BRICS Summit in Durban.
Davies said hosting the WEF plays a key role in Africa's economic growth and is very crucial to the host nation to showcase its potentials.
He said there should greater competition between African states to play host to the WEF in their own respective countries.
Welcoming delegates to the summit, South Africa President Jacob Zuma said his country takes the event as an opportunity to showcase the country to the world investors.
"We have an opportunity to demonstrate to investors, the competitive advantages of our economy. We are rated highly on areas such as infrastructure development, financial markets, technological readiness, business sophistication and innovation,'' Zuma said in a statement.
He also indicated that Pretoria will use the WEF to promote the National Development Plan (NDP) and work to attract investments in the six job drivers -- agriculture, mining and beneficiation, manufacturing, the green economy, infrastructure development and tourism.
To ensure greater Africa economic growth, Davies said, African governments must become more agile and responsive to market forces that provide both opportunity as well as challenges for African economies.
"Africa governments need to create better enabling environments for business and private sector activity."
According to Davies, challenges to full-swing Africa economic growth include inefficient public sectors that are not agile in responding to changing economic realities and lack of diversification in their economies and resource dependency, thus exposing these countries to higher risk.
"Shallow" capital markets, Davies said, are unable to absorb sizeable amounts of investment.
To attract more investment and ensure African trade with other parts of the world, it is necessary for the continent to improve infrastructure linkages between African economies and with the outside global economy, Davies suggested.
Intra-regional trade is relatively low due to poor infrastructure, fragmented markets, rigid border controls for the transportation of goods and a lack of diversified manufacturing value chains in African economies, he said.
"With robust economic growth, these areas must be consciously focused upon to ensure better intra-regional trade," he added,
The WEF meeting takes place against the background of positive news about the continent. Over the last decade, six of the world's 10 fastest growing economies are in Africa.
According to the World Bank, almost half of the countries on the African continent have attained middle income status. With an expected annual growth of 5 percent, sub-Saharan Africa is projected to continue its move from a developing region to a hub of global growth.
Africa's improved economic prospects have largely been attributed to actions taken by respective governments to end political conflicts improve governance and create better macroeconomic conditions.
