Nairobi — EVIDENCE OF INCREASING INterest in Africa, especially in the areas of trade and investment, is mounting. Besides the Chinese who have taken the continent by storm, India is following suit.

So are South Koreans, Turks, Russians and Brazilians. Malaysians, Thais and others are also in the game.

For a continent that has long been shunned, except where exploitation of its vast natural resources is concerned, this kind of interest is quite astounding.

Ironically, the West, which has long dominated Africa, is slowly being edged out by these emerging economies.

But it is not that these increasingly powerful economies are doing this in a vacuum. For the last 15 years, most African economies have improved so tremendously that other nations would be hard-put to ignore them.

Take, for instance, some of the once war-torn countries. They have been at the forefront in economic growth rates and rising prosperity.

Mozambique and Angola, both of which endured centuries of Portuguese colonialism and subsequent internecine strife, have been averaging over seven per cent growth rates.

While Angola's economy is driven by its huge reserves of oil, Mozambique's has been driven by a fervent capitalism that belies its once-socialist system.

In Ethiopia which was brutalised by the Mengistu dictatorship, current Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was a few months ago quoted in the media as extolling a 10 per cent growth rate.

Some of Kenya's horticulturalists have either decamped there or threatened to do so.

Equatorial Guinea, burgeoning with oil, has been raking in high double-digit growth rates. And some of its neighbours such as Gabon and Cameroon have not been doing badly either.

BOTSWANA, WHICH MOSTLY COMprises the Kalahari desert, has a currency, the Pula, that is stronger than the South African Rand.

Of course, it would be unfair to leave out the Eastern African states, which have shown clear evidence of rising growth rates.

Rising from the ashes of the long disaster of no-growth in the 1990s, Kenya, this year, recorded a 6.1 per cent growth. Even with questions over whether this has actually filtered down to the common people, evidence of a resurgent economy is quite visible.

The upshot of all this growing interest in Africa is clear; this continent can longer be ignored.

Although it remains poor and backward in many fields, it also happens to be the last frontier of economic activity that other economies must seek for market and trade.

For instance, in the ICT sector, Africa has been growing quite fast. In Kenya, mobile telephony has reached over 7 million in just six years and, apparently it is only the high connectivity costs that are an impediment to higher subscriber growth.

Multi-billion dollar deals have been transacted across the continent establishing vast communications networks. FM stations and television networks now dot every country in Africa where only a few years ago, its denizens used to be treated to stolid, boring, State-owned outlets dishing out propaganda.

Such business opportunities, which are said to offer higher returns for investors, are being gobbled up by Africans themselves, and everyone else with dollars to invest.

That is why if African States can move away from their unending strifes, create modern infrastructure and strengthen governance issues, they will see an avalanche of countries coming in for a second scramble, this one quite positive.

Mr Ngugi comments on business and development issues