The infrastructure corridors investors are watching
Infrastructure decisions made this decade will determine which markets are easiest to enter for the next twenty years. Here's what our members are watching.
Cross-border infrastructure — power interconnectors, rail corridors and port expansions — rarely makes headline business news, but it quietly determines which markets are cheap to serve and which remain logistically expensive regardless of how attractive the underlying demand looks.
Power first
Regional power pools are extending reach faster than new generation capacity alone would suggest, which is gradually easing one of the most persistent constraints on manufacturing and data-driven business models. Where grid reliability improves, we tend to see a lag of roughly one to two years before more capital-intensive business models follow.
Rail and ports as a signal
Renewed investment in rail corridors linking inland production to coastal ports is a useful leading indicator for logistics and distribution businesses considering where to establish regional hubs. Port throughput data is one of the more reliable, if unglamorous, proxies for real trade growth in a given corridor.
Our energy and infrastructure working group tracks these projects on an ongoing basis as part of the club's sector briefings, feeding into the panel content for the Africa Business Summit each year.