Staff Reporter
Windhoek-The first-ever Eljota Investment Summit took place at the Namibian Institute of Public Administration and Management (NIPAM) last week. The summit, which was held in association with Nedbank, saw more than 200 delegates from across the Namibian financial investment fraternity in attendance.
The purpose of the summit was to create a conversation on issues in the local economy, investment and retirement industry as well as to provide an inside view from local fund management houses, investment professionals and financial services players.
Welcoming the delegates, founding member of Eljota Investment Managers, Johannes !Gawaxab, said the summit was aimed at getting the sense of the investment landscape in Namibia. “We are bringing a group of regional and local financial sector players together to debate investment insights with the view to protect and grow wealth and to take advantage of investment opportunities that are opening up in the local market.”
Chief Economist at Nedbank South Africa, Dennis Dykes, opened the summit by providing an outlook of the global and South African economic environments. His presentation explained that the global economic environment, which has emerged from the global financial crisis and is starting to show a more synchronised growth, with the forecast for global growth according to the IMF being 3.9 percent for 2018.
“For the moment things are looking comfortable in the global environment, the risks seem to be under control. However, there is the threat of the possibility of interest rates increasing.”
Dykes also touched on the economic situation in South Africa and stated that the Rand has bounced back as a result of the current political change, which should also help stop the downward spiral the economy has been facing over the last eight years.
Namibian economist, Rowland Brown, presented an overview of the Namibian economic landscape. He explained that the Namibian economy saw significant growth from Independence up until 2015, from where it started to slow down. Brown attributed the slow down to a number of reasons including drought, the oil price collapse, export pressure in commodities such as uranium as well as the crash of the construction industry.
Other topics covered at the summit included looking at the best listed equity investment opportunities in Namibia as well as the common mistakes investors make. A popular topic was one on digital currencies such as Bitcoin, investing in cryptocurrency and factors that are driving the cryptocurrency craze.
Panel discussions dealing with unlisted investment opportunities, investing in Namibian bonds and Treasury Bills as well as offshore banking provided insights on the best opportunities and how to mitigate risks.
The summit sought to not only describe events or discuss topics, but participants were encouraged to be part of the conversation by coming up with suggested solutions, which would in turn create investment opportunities in Namibia as well as to create wealth for Namibians.