Interview with Jeff Gable, Chief Economist, Absa Group in Investor’s Mag
1. From your vantage point, what are the biggest macro forces that will shape African economies over the next 12–18 months, and how should policymakers and investors prioritize their responses?
Trade, commodity prices, politics, public finance.
Over a longer horizon, I expect that the African Continental Free Trade Area is going to be a significant boost to the continent’s competitiveness, trade, and wealth. But over the next 12–18 months, the drivers of trade are instead going to be about global trade and US tariffs, around commodity prices and around building new markets for African goods.
As many African countries’ primary engagement with the rest of the world is via exports of resources, and as there is a renewed global focus on securing commodity supply, particularly of critical minerals, commodity prices are going to be key. Higher prices not only boost Africa’s export earnings today, but also help pull in fresh investment into the resource sector that will result in even greater output and economic activity tomorrow. Think rare earths in the DRC, copper in Zambia, and hydrocarbon projects in places like Uganda, Tanzania, and Mozambique.
For politics, it’s going to be a mix of the global, the geo-political, and the domestic. The first and last of that list are straightforward enough, but it’s the middle one, geo-politics, that could be the most important for Africa. The contestation between the West and China, in particular, will be very interesting to watch here on the continent, as these two great powers vie for advantage as they look to shape the next decade and beyond.
And the last big focus area, I think, will be public finance. It’s not as interesting as my previous three examples, and may well reflect my focus as a macroeconomist rather than as an entrepreneur, policymaker, or dealmaker, but governments’ social contract with the population, as viewed through the lens of public finance, is going to be a critical driver of the African outlook in the periods ahead. Public debt levels are much higher than they were a decade ago, and an ever-larger share of scarce tax revenues is being eaten up by debt service. With so much government debt out there, fresh demands for infrastructure investment are increasingly going to need to be on private rather than public balance sheets. And at the societal level, discussions are going to need to take place that speak to the balance of taxes and spending that is both financially sustainable and socially accepted.
2. Mauritius is a small, open, services-led economy. Where do you see its growth ceiling in a world of slower trade and pricier capital, and which levers (human capital, digital trade, logistics, tax/regulatory clarity) could lift potential growth?
All are important, none are easy, and other competitors of Mauritius are all focused on improving their own competitive positions.
So it’s about constant reform, which for Mauritius is not only about ensuring sustainable public finance, but also about being at the forefront of global financial regulation and innovation.
3. The IFC platform is a strategic asset. Which exportable financial-services niches could Mauritius realistically own in Africa over the next cycle—fund administration, captive insurance, structured trade, private-credit operations—and what “plumbing” needs to be in place?
Mauritius is well-positioned to lead in select financial services across Africa and to serve as a gateway for financial services into Africa. With its mature regulatory framework, geographic proximity, and strong bilateral ties, Mauritius is well-placed to lead in exportable niches such as fund administration, captive insurance, structured trade finance, and private credit operations.
Encouragingly, global capital is once again looking to Africa. After years of limited flows into emerging and frontier markets, we’re entering a more favourable cycle, driven by Africa’s demographic growth, digital acceleration, and infrastructure needs. Mauritius can play a catalytic role in channeling this capital, offering a trusted and efficient platform for investors seeking exposure to African opportunities.
To fully unlock this potential, we must reinforce the foundational enablers of our financial ecosystem: modernising regulation, accelerating digital transformation, deepening our talent pool, and enhancing global outreach. Equally important are the need for diversifying and modernising financial products, with a focus on fintech, sustainable finance, wealth management, and capital markets, as well as the continued investment required to promote the Mauritius IFC brand globally, especially through a targeted Africa Strategy.
These priorities are echoed in the Ministry’s recently published Strategy Report 2025–2030. With these foundations in place, Mauritius can consolidate its role as Africa’s financial bridge connecting global capital with the continent’s vast investment potential.
4. If you had to pick one logistics bottleneck and one regulatory hurdle that AfCFTA should fix first to unlock growth, what would they be—and what credible milestones would show progress?
There will be many different views on this, as there are so many building blocks that need to be in place in order to construct a much more robust intra-Africa trading environment. But I’d highlight two here. The first is a much greater harmonization of cross-border procedures. No one gains from trucks queuing at the border, from ships in the port, or from goods hung up in paperwork at our airports.
Documentation and systems need to be digitalized and standardized across the continent, freeing up huge efficiencies, reducing costs, and boosting Africa’s competitiveness. The second is the need to take a very hard look at how to manage the balance between maintaining affordable products for African households whilst protecting fledgling African businesses from ex-African competition.
Consider autos, for example. It is difficult to create truly global-scale value chains in automotive production in Africa if used cars from Europe and Asia are allowed access into African markets cheaply. As a unified block, Africa is going to need to decide if it is able to make the difficult decisions today in order to secure an enabling environment for globally competitive manufacturing tomorrow.
5. What is your medium-term outlook for the continent? Where do you see the most durable opportunities, and what are the principal risks investors still underappreciate?
Public finance is probably the biggest risk. Too many African countries have high and rising debt burdens, which means that ever more of each country’s hard-won tax collection each year goes to interest payments on debt already incurred rather than on the public services and public investment that are needed to help position the continent’s next growth phase.
So governments need to consider carefully how to extract the most long-term value from all spending, and voters need to recognize that only spending and tax promises that are consistent with sustainable public finances might not feel like much fun in the present but, over the medium term, are the only way to provide for a successful economy.
As for opportunities? I believe they abound. From a top-down perspective, Africa is once again expected to grow not only faster than the global average – and of course the lower average that G7 countries perform at – but once again even faster than emerging markets. Faster than China, too. There’s a fair bit of differentiation across the continent, but generally it’s an outlook in which the continent’s largest economies, like South Africa, Nigeria, and Egypt, see their growth recovering, albeit to rates some say shy of Africa’s average, and where East African economies tend to perform relatively well.
On a sector level, all of mining, construction, agriculture, infrastructure, and consumer-facing industries offer compelling stories. As can manufacturing, should Africa get the trade environment right. And if countries can get their public finances in order and reduce their appetite for borrowing, this can also help free up financing and reduce financing costs for the private sector as well.
