Africa has to be " re-branded," or else negative impressions of the continent could curtail ambitious plans for growth and development, a World Economic Forum (WEF) official said in Cape Town, South Africa on Wednesday.

Speaking at the opening press briefing for this year's WEF Africa Summit, entitled "Going for growth," Africa director of the WEF Haiko Alfeld said that business plays a key role in building credibility of reform efforts and re-branding efforts. "Clearly business again is a critical partner in talking up the fortunes of the continent."

Taking up the re-branding theme, Jim Goodnight, chief executive officer of America software company SAS, said Africa was seen by the US and the rest of the world as the most stagnant of the continents.

If Africa was to continue its growth, which has recently ratcheted up to an unprecedented 5.5 percent, the continent had to be seen as a vibrant economy, where people were willing to invest money.

"I think it is extremely important that the branding of Africa as a vibrant place be continued," said Goodnight. "The great growth that we've seen from India and China over the last 10 years, so much of that came from foreign direct investment and companies and investment do not flow into an area that is perceived to be on a low growth plateau."

Emphasizing the need not to look at Africa as one homogenous place, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Charles Soludo, said re-branding needed to start with a "re-categorisation" of what people meant when saying "Africa."

"We must begin to differentiate Africa as a mere geographical expression. It happens to be that all these countries are banded together by geography, but in terms of the economics, the potentials and prospects and progress, they are as different as they are similar," he said.

Soludo said this message was important when thinking about re- branding the continent, because "there was no village called Africa" and the countries that constituted the continent were different from each other.

Maria Ramos, Transnet chief executive, concurred, saying the three-day summit provided an opportunity to share some of the successes and challenges faced by the continent.

"Any re-branding exercise has to be done on the basis of things that are actually happening on the ground," she said, adding that people no longer thought of India and China as they did 10 to 15 years ago.

She said the images seen of Africa were not a true reflection of the many goods things happening on the continent.

The Geneva-based World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships for the global public interest.

Source: Xinhua