«§» 18 June 2014



Regardless of the several ill-news emanating from Nigeria, not everything is all gloomy about the most populous black nation on the surface of the earth.

Only recently, Nigeria was named as the biggest economy in Africa ahead of significantly developed countries like South Africa and Egypt. News which had the country grinning from ear to ear with pride.

To add another feather to Nigeria’s cap, a survey conducted recently has proven that Nigeria has the largest market for multinational companies. According to the survey, Nigeria is closely followed by Argentina and Vietnam.

WSJ reports:

Fresh from its coronation as the biggest economy in Africa, Nigeria has scored another first. The troubled West African country has emerged as the frontier-market economy that is attracting the most attention from American and European multinationals.

Nigeria is joined by Argentina and Vietnam as the frontier markets that multinational corporations are most interested in, according to a new index of corporate sentiment.



The data point to some striking regional differences. Of the 20 countries attracting most interest from multinationals, nine are in sub-Saharan Africa. Few will be surprised to see Kenya and Nigeria among the top tier, but Ethiopia and Tanzania making it onto the list as the 12th- and 13th-most watched countries respectively might cause a few raised eyebrows.

The corporate world’s fascination with Africa shows through clearly in the rates of change of sentiment, too. The data compare an average of corporate sentiment for year-to-date 2014 with an average of the results over the full-year 2013.

Four of the five countries with the highest positive change in sentiment are in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as seven of the top 10.

Pakistan, though, is ahead of the pack in terms of the number of companies newly taking an interest in it. Sentiment toward the South Asian nation of 183 million people improved by 5.6 percentage points, putting it ahead of Africa’s rising stars Nigeria and Kenya, which each saw sentiment improve by just over four percentage points

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Posted: at 18-06-2014 06:08 AM (9 years ago) | Hero

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