Africa’s tax haven
(Foreign Policy) – A new report from the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development shows that the picture of who is investing the most in the continent is a bit different than you might expect.
Discussion of BRICS investment in Africa tends to conjure up images of Chinese-built superhighways and controversial mining projects. On his first trip to Africa, President Xi Jinping has defended his country’s growing influence on the continent ahead of a BRICS summit meeting in South Africa.
But a new report from the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development shows that the picture of who is investing the most in the continent is a bit different than you might expect. For one thing, China isn’t even East Asia’s top investor in Africa — that would be Malaysia:
A 2010 article from Consultancy African Intelligence described Malaysia’s investment in Africa as “dispersed both in terms of the countries and the industries targeted” and noted that “Malaysian firms – such as Petronas and Telekom Malaysia – accounted for more than 1/2 of mergers and acquisitions between Asian and African multinational corporations (MNCs) between 1987 and 2005, with the largest recipients having been Mauritius and South Africa.” Reuters reports that “Malaysia sent 24 percent of its outward FDI to Africa in 2011, mainly to Mauritius in that year.”
What’s so attractive about Mauritius? Well apart from a stable democracy and what are apparently lovely beach resorts, it’s also an emerging tax haven — though the governmentobjects to the label — as the Wall Street Journal reported last year:
