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01 December 2011
Opening ceremony
In November 2011, we were invited to present the first training programme for the banking industry in the youngest country in the world – South Sudan. Sponsored by CFC Stanbic and hosted by the Bank of South Sudan, a short course on Investment Fundamentals was delivered to approximately 35 bankers representing all the key institutions in this fledgling economy and financial sector.
South Sudan is a nation rich in resources. The river Nile flows through the middle of the country, providing support for many communities along its banks and offering great potential for the development of an agricultural sector as well as power generation. To the north are the oil fields which are majority-owned by South Sudan although the refineries are currently situated in Sudan. A steady flow of oil revenues provides income for the new government to rebuild the country after so many years of civil war prior to independence in July of this year. The country is also blessed with minerals and precious metals.
In doing fundamental analysis of investment opportunities, one technique is the top-down approach, in which one tries to identify which sectors of the economy are in a growth phase, which are mature and which are stagnant or in decline. There cannot be many places in the world in which almost every sector is in a phase of rapid growth: hotels, construction, infrastructure, banking, agriculture, energy, transport, communications, retail, education and training ……. The list is endless as the country starts to make up for the lost time of the war years. We hope to be able to contribute to the sustainable development of the financial sector in particular in the months and years ahead.
