But there are still countries with over 6% growth, says Andrew Gordon in Investor’s Daily Edge. Some of them, such as Afghanistan and Angola, aren’t the safest places in the world, however. And they are difficult to invest in directly.

A way around this is to find an American company doing business in these high-growth economies or a foreign company listed on a US stock exchange.

Market growth is nowhere to be found. Not in Canada, not in Mexico, not in emerging countries and certainly not in the U.S., as the chart below attests.

So, has market growth and the economic growth it depends on completely disappeared from the face of the earth. Not quite. There are still some countries showing impressive economic growth. The fastest-growing country in the world is Azerbaijan. Its economy is growing at an 18.6 percent clip. And on Azerbaijan’s heels is Angola – clocking growth of 16 percent.

According to the IMF there are plenty of countries whose growth comes in over six percent. I’ve listed them below from fastest to slowest.

Armenia (10)
Turkmenistan (9.5)
Liberia (9.5)
China (9.3)
Nigeria (9.1)
Georgia (9)
Libya (8.8)
Afghanistan (8.6)
Ethiopia (8.4)
Uzbekistan (8)
India (7.9)
Tanzania (7.8)
Panama (7.7)
Sudan (7.6)
Oman (7.4)
Vietnam (7.3)
Cambodia (7.2)
Montenegro (7.2)
Belarus (7.1)
Uganda (7.1)
Argentina (7)
Peru (7)
Moldova (7)
Egypt (7)
Mozambique (7)
Ghana (6.9)
Russia (6.8)
Madagascar (6.8)
Suriname (6.8)
Sierra Leone (6.5)
Morocco (6.5)
Lithuania (6.5)
Sri Lanka (6.4
Zambia (6.3)
Indonesia (6.1
Mauritania (6.1)
Uruguay (6)
Pakistan (6)

Other than the BRIC (Brazil/Russia/India/China), not many of the other countries have captured investors’ imagination. Vietnam and Argentina are the two notable exceptions.

Would you like to invest in the fastest-growing country – Angola? All I know about Angola is that my daughter lives on the Namibian side of the border between Namibia and Angola and the Peace Corps won’t allow her to step one foot inside Angola. It’s not the safest country in the world … to travel or invest in.

Pakistan anybody? How about Afghanistan? The Sudan? Clearly, many of these countries are unsavory for one reason or another. And many others are hard to invest in: there are no mutual funds investing in them or companies in those countries listed on American exchanges.

But there are some. For example, Telekomunikasi (TLK), Indonesia’s major telecom company, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Another way to invest? Find an American company that is doing a lot of business in one or several of these countries. For example, Dow Chemical is making a major investment in Libya and Intel is doing a major project in Vietnam.

Or find a respectable overseas company listed on a U.S. exchange that is doing business in these countries. For example, Sasol (SSS), the oil and gas producer from South Africa, has operations in Mozambique and other African countries. It’s also listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Or if you’re interested in Moldova, Belarus, Montenegro and other central European countries, you could invest in iShares Austria Index ETF, (EWO). This ETF invests in companies which do business in central Europe.

Granted, it’s indirect exposure. But given the risky nature of many of these countries, indirect is probably the best kind of exposure to have.

Source: It Is Still Possible to Invest in Growth

Today comes a report from the McKinsey Global Institute that shows us just how quickly money is shifting away from Europe and America towards the oil-exporting countries and the Asian manufacturing economies.

The new numbers are staggering.

The oil exporting countries alone owned foreign assets worth $4.6 trillion at the end of last year. That’s more than 1.6 times the size of the whole UK economy.

And remember that that was before we saw oil cross the $100 per barrel threshold this year.

This phenomenon is just getting started… That’s just the beginning of it though. Even if the price of oil falls back to $70 per barrel, the petrodollar economies are going accumulate foreign investments worth $10 trillion by 2013. That’s two and a half times bigger than the UK economy will be at that point. And if the price of oil stays at $100 per barrel, their oil exporters are going to snap-up $12.2 trillion in foreign assets – THREE times the size of the British economy.

Remember that this isn’t something that’s going to happen at some distant point in the future. It’s happening right now. And the figures that we’re talking about are just for the next five years.

When you look at it from that perspective, it doesn’t make much sense as an investor to focus on companies that are trying to tap into UK or European economic growth.

What we’re seeing right now is probably the biggest and fastest transfer of wealth and economic power in history, but our daily media is still focussing on UK retail sales blues and falling property prices. These are obviously serious concerns, but smart investors still have plenty of opportunities beyond these shores…

Just look at the Persian Gulf…

Zoom-in on the six Arab countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council alone and you find that they’re raking-in $1.5 billion dollars from oil exports every single day!

Over the next 14 years, the Gulf Arab countries alone are going to earn up to $6.2 trillion from oil exports, even if the price of oil falls back to $70 per barrel. That’s almost 50% below where the price of oil is today. What are the chances of that happening? Not very high, if you ask me.

But even if oil falls back to $100 per barrel, the Gulf states are going to rake in almost $9 trillion over the next 14 years.

The big question of course, is where all this money is going to end up and how do we get our slice of it?

Where’s the money going?

Traditionally, the oil exporters re-invested the bulk of their petrodollars in Western securities and assets. That’s changing fast though. A lot more of that money is now being invested at home and in the fast-growing Asian economies.

In 2002, nearly 85% of the Gulf’s wealth was invested abroad in financial instruments mostly linked to the U.S. Dollar. By 2007, though, that was down to 75% as they increasingly focussed on the Gulf itself, Asia and Africa. You can bet that that is only going to keep on rising because growth in those regions far outstrips what we’re seeing in the US and Europe.

So that’s where you’ve got to position your investments if you want to take advantage of this petrodollar bonanza. And that’s precisely what we’ve been doing on the Profit Hunter service.

You’ve only got to look at our play on the Gulf’s petrodollar boom to see that happening. This company is the Gulf’s premier alternative asset manager and made its name with take-overs of some of the best-known Western companies in the 1980’s. It still has a big Western focus. But it recently launched a $1 billion Gulf investment fund to take advantage of local opportunities.

Given the kind of returns that it’s given investors – an average 20% per annum for the last 25 years – this is about as sure-fire a long-term investment as I can think of. Just remember that that 20% figure was what it produced when oil prices were a lot cheaper than what they are now.

Africa is going to be the big winner

The most exciting thing about the report was its finding that African oil exporters will be the biggest winners from this process. With oil at just $100 per barrel, the value of their foreign investments will increase by 30% each year and hit 1.6 trillion in the next five years.

That’s 1.6 thousand, thousand million dollars! Not bad for a continent that had been written-off as a basket case until just a couple of years ago. The latest forecast by McKinsey simply backs-up what I’ve been saying here at PH – Africa is set for a massive economic boom and all serious investors ought to be in there.

Profit Hunter readers are already invested in two fantastic companies that operate in Africa. One of them controls vital infrastructure on the continent and the other one looks set to become one of Africa’s biggest mining companies. You can read more about that here.

We’re now looking at several other opportunities in the region as well.

Asia’s powerhouse economies are raking it in as well…

The McKinsey report shows that the Asian manufacturing powerhouses have accumulated $4.6 trillion in sovereign foreign investments as well. That figure could rise to as high as 12.2 trillion over the next five years. That puts them on a par with the oil exporters. But these reserves are held by central banks and sovereign wealth funds. That doesn’t really give us a chance to get a slice of this bonanza. What it does show us though, is how quickly Asia’s economic machine is ramping-up.

We’ve stayed out of Asian markets recently – with the exception of Vietnam. But, as I have emphasised repeatedly in this service, Asia’s long-term growth story remains on track despite the recent share market turmoil. We’re now looking at a number of investment opportunities across the region. Expect to hear more on that from us shortly.

Here’s how you can profit from it…

In the meantime, follow this link and let me tell you exactly why we chose to stay in Vietnam despite all the recent turbulence in the Asian markets – because this is quite simply one of the biggest profit opportunities that we have come across.

Source: Buy This One Share and Tap into the Biggest Transfer of Wealth in History

The super-rich Saudi bin Laden family plans to build a $70 billon bridge linking Africa and the Middle East. French, American and Middle Eastern companies are already lining-up to get a piece of the action. We could soon see a major profit opportunity shaping-up here…

It also drives home a point that I’ve been making here at Profit Hunter: Africa is simply the most exciting investment opportunity out there right now. And we’ve already got one of the most exciting pan-African investments tucked away in our portfolio – a small AIM-listed company that controls vital infrastructure assets across the continent.

The mastermind behind this proposal is Tarek bin Laden, half-brother of the more colourful Osama. His Tarek Bin Laden Construction has been negotiating with the governments of Yemen and Djibouti about plans for a massive 28.5km bridge that will span the Red Sea.

The planned cross-sea bridge will carry a six-lane motorway and a railway between Yemen, on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa. It would also be one of the longest in the world.

$70 billion is just the tip of the iceberg

That $70 billion is just the tip of the iceberg though. Because bin Laden plans on building two whole new cities as well: one at either end of the bridge. The entire project is going to cost about $200 billion and will take approximately 15 years to complete. The bin Laden’s plan to put at least $10 billion of their own cash into the project, which probably gives you some idea about the kind of profits these savvy businessmen have spotted.

The story first emerged in the middle of last year and more details of the proposal have been coming out since. And the story keeps getting more exciting. In fact, Tarek bin Laden has already hired a Danish firm to design the bridge and construction is planned to begin next year.

The sheer scale of what they’re planning is mind-blowing and is going to totally transform the region. Just look at the two countries on either end of the bridge. The whole Yemeni economy is only expected to be worth $26 billion this year and Djibouti’s GDP is expected to be $954 million. These two little countries in the middle of nowhere might be about to move to the top of the growth-table.

Djibouti and Yemen are about as far off most traditional investors’ maps as you can get. The economies of these two countries are so small that they don’t really get much attention. But the mega-rich Arab investors have spotted a clear opportunity.

A shot in the arm for Africa

“…the big advantage will be to take millions of African Muslims to Mecca, by train or by bus”, says Djibouti’s Prime Minister Dileita Mohamed Dileita. That’s the kind of insight that comes from actually operating on the ground rather than looking at “emerging markets” opportunities from an office in the City or on Wall Street.

But it goes beyond that. The planned bridge and new cities are part of the deepening economic ties between Africa and the Middle East. The Gulf States are awash in oil profits, but they aren’t able to feed themselves. They’re increasingly looking to Africa to fill that need.

In fact, I’m willing to bet that this is simply the beginning of tide of Arab money that is going to be entering the continent.

The bridge is actually part of the bin Ladens’ broader plan to connect the Middle East with Muslim Africa. Not everyone is going to be thrilled by that idea. But we’re going to be paying close attention as more details about bin Laden’s bridge come out. A $200 billion project is bound to throw up some interesting opportunities.

And, of course, China is pumping billions of dollars into Africa as well. They’re investing in everything from mines and oil-fields to power its industries to agriculture to help feed its massive population…

I believe Africa is quite simply the hottest investment opportunity out there right now.

We’re already in there

We’ve already got two Africa plays in our portfolio and we’re scouring the continent for more overlooked opportunities. Not that I’m actually suggesting that we start investing directly in African markets. There are enough options out there that allow us invest in Africa’s growth while keeping our money in the established markets.

Like that little AIM-share that I mentioned…

Regards,

Manraaj Singh
Editor
Profit Hunter

Source: On the Trail of the Bin Laden Billions

On Friday I issued details to my readers of what I believe is the single best investment in the African country’s mining industry. The very next day, came a clear sign that the scramble for the Congo’s riches is speeding-up. On Saturday, leading Chinese mining company, Western Mining, announced that it is looking for bidders to buy stakes in three copper and cobalt projects in the country.

This is all part of the rapid development of the Congo’s mining industry that we are now seeing. In the last two years, the African giant has gone from being one of the most god-forsaken places on earth to the latest hot spot for global miners. And my latest tip puts us right at the forefront of that.

Western Mining is China’s second-biggest producer of lead concentrate. It is part of the stampede of Chinese companies into Congo’s mining industry that I’ve been talking about for the last few months. China is investing more than $9 billion in the Congo, as part of its plan to win access to the country’s copper and cobalt mines.

Western Mining hasn’t given much detail on what’s on offer just yet, but you can almost bet that it’s going to be a major project. This is a big company – its’ got a market capitalisation of about $5 billion… so the fact that they’re looking for outside investment tells me that something big is up. I’ll give you further details as they emerge.

Not all the Chinese investment we’ve seen in Congo’s mining industry so far has been large scale.

Hong Kong housewives make their marks…

Small-scale Chinese entrepreneurs have been active in the Congo for several years now. They’ve taken over the city’s old colonial villas that were abandoned by the old white mining executives who fled the country during the Shaba uprisings in the 70’s.

Chinese middlemen have been buying ore from the wildcat miners in Katanga province and selling it on to processing plants.

And they’re in the metals processing business as well. Of the 50-odd metal smelting plants around Lubumbashi, one of the most exciting mining areas, about half of them are owned by Chinese businessmen. Most of these are small-scale operations though.

And when I say small-scale, that’s exactly what I mean. Some of them are just ramshackle clumps of shacks with corrugated-iron roofs and belching chimneys (I’d love to hear what our local elf’n’safety mafia have to say about them.) The owners of these operations are a colourful lot…an entrepreneur from Shanghai, a couple of ladies from Hong Kong…

This been the weakest link in Congo’s mining industry so far. The country has huge mineral reserves, but as the country went to the dogs in the final years of Joseph Mobutu’s rule, almost all the mining stopped. Now that the mining has resumed, the country has been hamstrung by a lack of refining capacity. But all that is about to change.

Today, the International Copper Study Group (ICSG) released a report on its predictions for the global copper industry over the next five years. Here’s the most interesting part of the report, as far as I was concerned: the ICSG estimates that global copper refining capacity will reach 25.6 million tons in 2012, up from 21.5 million tons in 2007. About half of that rise is going to come from China and Congo.

Of course, our mining investment has already got a large-scale on-site copper and cobalt processing facilities, which gives the company a huge advantage over its rivals.

What the ICSG report drives home though, is that the Congo is on its way to claiming its place as a big beast in the global metals industry.

And my mining investment puts us well ahead of the curve on this trend. In fact, I think we’ve beaten just about every City broker and investment service to the punch…

And my second play is just as impressive

This pan-African conglomerate, is developing a 250-room 5-star hotel in the Congo to service the influx of foreigners drawn by the mining boom.

In fact this company has got its fingers in a whole host of pies… and we’re set to profit from the all.

My favourite profit opportunity from this company is going to come from them holding the USA to ransom for $156 billion of African oil… it’s one of the best stories you’ll ever read.

All you need to do, to get in on both of these stocks… is become a regular Profit Hunter reader… Read more about this exciting African oil story here – and I’ll send you investment reports on the Two Stocks that are going to Change the Face of Africa right now FOR FREE…

Regards,

Manraaj Singh
Editor
Profit Hunter

Source: Two Stocks Set to Change the Face of Africa