Africa truly rising; Ghanaian banker declares in UK

Ghanaians continue to make strides across the borders of the country and the African continent.

The careers and employability centre at the Robert Gordon University (Best Modern University in the UK - The Guardian University Guide 2013) on Wednesday, February 12, 2014, hosted a young Ghanaian Investment Banker and Entrepreneur at its maiden International conference for Career & Entrepreneurial Success to view exciting and diverse range of opportunities for International Students (especially the African Community) to explore the career and entrepreneurship opportunities back home in their respective countries after their studies in the UK to allow returning graduates maximize their career ambitions and make use of the new opportunities in Africa.

The Guest Speaker for the Conference ; Richmond Kwame Frimpong ( a Vice President in a leading Investment Bank in West Africa, an Author, Entrepreneur and a Motivational Broadcaster on Social Media, Radio & TV)who personally had successfully hosted similar events across West Africa for a number of years (particularly in Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire and Nigeria), supporting graduating students to make most of local opportunities available to them after school, made a remarkable presentation with the Title – Africa; A Rising Continent On The Move!

He made reference to statistics that point to the fact that the past decade had seen six of the world's ten fastest-growing economies emerging from the African continent, and that in eight of the past ten years, Africa has grown faster than East Asia, including Japan. He argued that, even allowing for the knock-on effect of the northern hemisphere's slowdown, the IMF projected Africa to grow by an average of nearly 6% in 2012, about the same as Asia, and about 6.1 in 2014 for Sub-Saharan vis-à-vis the projected global growth rate average of 3.7%.

He intimated Africa now has a fast-growing middle class and that according to Standard Bank, around 60m Africans have an average income of about $3,000 a year, and 100m will in 2015. The richest black person in the world is no more an American but an African; Aliko Dangote, the Nigerian cement king.

Not discounting the fact that Africa still had a long way to go, he argued that Africa today is positioned to make it far more possible than ever for budding entrepreneurs and young professionals to live out their potential and realize their dreams if only they could activate the possibility paradigm of the new African and take advantage of the huge opportunities in Oil & Gas, Telecommunication, Real Estate, ICT, Insurance, Banking, Health, Manufacturing, Creative arts, etc. whilst being persistent and committed to defying all odds.

In his concluding remarks, he mentioned that the African graduates and professionals should return home and bring their international exposure and knowledge to bear on the ongoing reconstruction efforts on the continent, because Africa is now a rising continent on the move!