David Ofosu-Dorte, Senior Partner at AB & David law firm, predicts that in the coming three years, food imports into Africa would rise from $35 million to $110 billion.
“That’s food import and that tells you how much we are sending outside.
“There is no magic wand about the fact that the dollar to the local currency, whether Cedi, Kwacha, Naira or Kenyan Shillings, have challenges,” he said, adding that food import was likely to increase further to $150 billion by 2030.
At a Citi Tv event held in Accra on Monday, Mr. Ofosu-Dorte made this statement while presenting a paper titled “Africa and the Global Economy: New Realities, New Possibilities.”
The Institute of Statistical, Social, and Economic Research (ISSER) collaborated with the organisers to host the gathering, which was known as “The Cedi Summit”.
Mr. Ofosu-Dorte estimated that the continent needs to spend $1.7 trillion on infrastructure development to close the infrastructural gaps.
He suggested that Africans should concentrate on areas such as fashion, integration, infrastructure, recovery, automation, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, logistics and supply chains, as well as value addition to raw materials.
He discussed how, among other things, an industry like agri-food, where local goods were packaged, could alter metropolitan imports and lessen the demand for dollars.