Christopher Adams: Africa remains dark continent in eyes of NZ businesses

Stephen Jennings. Photo / AP

Home to some of world’s fastest-growing economies overlooked in export push.

Rich-lister Stephen Jennings hit the nail on the head in his call for New Zealand companies to have a closer look at Africa.

In a Business Herald interview this month, he said Kiwi firms were, for the most part, failing to respond to the opportunity presented by a continent that has housed some of the world's fastest-growing economies in recent years.

"I'm absolutely convinced that New Zealand is missing a massive trick in Africa," Jennings said. "We're so fixated on China and the rest of Asia."

The Taranaki-born expat made a fortune as an investment banker in Russia after the Soviet Union fell.

He knows a thing or two about spotting opportunities in frontier markets on the cusp of dramatic economic change.

Improved governance, fewer conflicts, increased foreign investment and (now waning) commodity demand have been stoking economic growth in many African countries in the past decade.

These days Jennings is building massive urban development projects in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But he reckons Western prejudice - the legacy of years of aid organisation marketing aimed at generating pity - still causes many businesses to approach Africa with a less than open mind. Personal experiences give me cause to agree.

I remember telling a New Zealand business leader that I'd just returned from a trip to Ethiopia. The thought of that country caused him to grimace.

He looked as if he wanted to wash the hand that had just shaken mine.

Jennings' comments also got me thinking about the Government's updated export growth strategy, which it unveiled in Auckland last month.

Amid all the rah-rah of the event - which included speeches from ministers Tim Groser, Murray McCully and Steven Joyce - much was made of the opportunities in the Asia Pacific region, including Latin America.

I don't, however, recall Africa being mentioned even once.

Similarly, the continent is ignored in the Building Export Markets chapter of the Government's Business Growth Agenda report that was released at the event.

How many New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) staff are based in Africa? Zero - that part of the world is overseen by its Dubai office, which has 16 staff.

To compare, NZTE has 121 employees in east Asia, 65 of them in China.

A spokeswoman for the export development agency said a new Dubai-based staff member, who would be solely focused on Africa, would start work this year.

Another positive development is the embassy New Zealand opened last year in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - Africa's diplomatic capital - which is partly aimed at facilitating trade and economic ties with the continent.

But it appears that Africa is being largely overlooked in New Zealand's export push.

Of course, the Asia Pacific region is our biggest and most immediate trade opportunity.

It deserves to receive the lion's share of public and private sector attention.

And a number of New Zealand companies are already pushing into Africa.

Firms operating there include Fonterra, which recently entered a partnership to build an Ethiopian milk powder plant, baggage-handling technology manufacturer Glidepath Group and Hamilton-based Gallagher Group, best known for its electric fence technology.

Despite growth headwinds posed by the commodity price slump, many African nations remain poised to experience the same explosive middle-class expansion in the next 30 years that Asia saw in the past 30.

It's a challenging business opportunity, but one that shouldn't be missed.