With a total amount of $18.3 billion, France was the leading country for foreign direct investment in Africa in 2014, we learn from from a report published annually on the issue by the Financial Times. This amount represents 21% of the $83 billion injected into countries in the region by non-resident investors, whether they are African or not.

As surprising as this may seem, Greece in the period, would be the second country of foreign direct investment in Africa (primarily Mac-Optic, specialist in petro-chemicals for a refinery in Egypt), ahead of the USA, China, Belgium and Canada. Intra-African expansion is also doing well, with South Africa injecting $4.6 billion in African economies, but for a number of 45 projects, a decline of 13% compared to 2013.

Out of a total of 660 project investments, France with 46 projects falls back to third position behind the USA which financed 97 projects and the UK which invested in 51 projects. An important point, which transpires from reading the report, is that companies based in Africa occupy second position in this segment, with 131 projects financed by the latter, just behind West European businesses.

Among the other indicators, it appears that Turkish investors have created the most jobs (more than 16,300) during the period. In order, Egypt, Angola, Nigeria, Mozambique and Morocco have been the primary destinations of FDI while South Africa, Morocco, Kenya, Egypt and Mozambique occupy the top 5 in job creation.

African countries continue thus to attract investors whether they are out of the region or in the region, in spite of the challenges of the international economic downturn, together with the crisis which still rocks Asian markets, resulting in the reduction in commodity prices, deficit in public revenues and foreign revenues, and pressure that these factors exert on the exchange rate.