Standard Bank calls on businesses to make use of opportunities

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STANDARD Bank of South Africa, the parent company of Nigeria’s Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc, has called on African businesses to leverage the growth opportunities offered by the changing geopolitical realities triggered by Brexit and the trade tension between the United States and China.

The bank noted that beyond the growing division and unilateralism behind the US, China trade tension and Brexit, there is increasing shift towards integration and multilateralism in the developing world, which present opportunities for partnerships and growth.

Vinod Madhavan, Head of Trade at Standard Bank, noted that every corporate and every country needs to be aware of changing geopolitical realities and the opportunities that these present for new partnerships and growth.

He said the United States–China trade war had already seen China, the world’s largest consumer of soya beans, halt imports from the United States.

According to him, this presented a huge opportunity for countries like South Africa adding that  Australia was the main beneficiary of this shift and other opportunities are likely to arise for Africa.

Madhavan stressed that other similar opportunities are also likely to emerge with both the United Kingdom and the European Union following Brexit. African businesses and urged governments to begin positioning themselves to leverage these opportunities.

He opined that the  emerging market credit stress will assist financial services organisations  to help corporates distribute risk across both their own balance sheets while also broadening distribution to other development and trade finance institutions.

“Emerging market credit stress also presents an opportunity to re-configure lending and risk distribution relationships within the developing world" he said.