General Electric Company (GE) on Monday announced $2 billion in new investments in Africa through 2018, as a three-day U.S.-Africa summit began in Washington.
GE, which already has a substantial presence in Africa, said the new investments will include health training programs in several countries including Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana; a new facility in Nigeria for manufacturing and assembling machinery, mainly for the oil sector; and customer-support systems in South Africa.
The industrial conglomerate also said it will announce this week a $1 billion power and railway equipment deal with Angola.
GE chief executive Jeff Immelt said Africa has become the company’s most promising region for growth. “The growth is real and now,” with the electric-power sector the top priority for much of the continent, he told reporters.
GE already supplies power-generation turbines and other equipment to facilities in Egypt, Algeria, South Africa, and other countries, and it recently set a deal to buy the power-generation unit of France’s Alstom, which the company hopes will help it compete in Africa’s growing hydropower sector.