Too Many Companies Running Away from Africa
Despite Obama administration pledges to substantially increase American investment on the continent, some companies are actually running in the other direction. For the U.S., soaring production of shale gas has reduced its reliance on African crude, with total imports from the continent plummeting by more than a fifth last year. Meanwhile, Islamist-inspired attacks have surged in countries from Nigeria to Kenya, heightening concerns about the threat posed to U.S. security interests, Mike Cohen and David J. Lynch wrote in Bloomberg. “The imperative for the U.S. to protect its strategic oil interests in Africa is diminishing extremely rapidly, if it’s not already vanished,” said Martyn Davies, CEO of Johannesburg-based Frontier Advisory, which provides research on emerging markets. “The U.S. is viewing Africa through a security lens more than ever before.”
