Rene Awambeng, the Founder and Managing Partner of Premier Invest, has advocated for Africa to focus on consuming its own produce.
He believes this approach will alleviate the continent’s import burden.
Premier Invest is an African-owned investment banking and advisory firm.
During a conversation on Point of View on Channel One TV with Bernard Avle, Mr Awambeng emphasised the need for Africa to boost its agricultural production to support communities that are unable to sustain themselves.
He was discussing the importance of development finance in unlocking Africa’s potential.
“Development finance still today doesn’t meet the challenge of financing the burden of Africa’s infrastructure. It complements but it doesn’t meet that need. That is why we see the continent still struggling at various levels.
“Every year particularly in the last couple of years we’ve seen interest rates on the rise, we’ve seen inflation on the rise, we’ve seen demand for development and infrastructure on the rise, but we don’t have the available resources to be able to match that. So, there is a conundrum for decision-makers, for policymakers- how to support that development.”
“…This is where the issue of productivity and competitiveness comes in. We need to work first of all as Africans to start consuming what we produce so we reduce that import burden.
“We need to drive agricultural production. We need to aggregate our agricultural production to take care of other communities that cannot fend for themselves,” he stated.
