For Africa To Catch Up To The World, East Africa Has To Catch Up To Africa

In Africa Rankings list of the top 25 companies by market capitalization, 1 is from Egypt, 3 are from Morroco, 4 are from Nigeria and a whopping 17 are from South Africa. The #1 ranked company, South Africa’s Naspers, leads by far, with market capitalization of $60 billion.  There are no companies from East or Central Africa.

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Of course, it goes without saying, that this is not remotely close to the world leaders, like:

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But the African list shows that East Africa and Central Africa continue to lag far behind South, West and North Africa. Considering how far Africa lags behind the world, this is a wake up call to East and Central Africa, as this image by The Africa Report’s list of the top 500 companies in Africa shows:

Unsurprisingly, East and Central Africa are the most ill-governed in Africa. War and dictatorship have many consequences: suffocating poverty is one of them.