Africa investor (Ai) and Interbrand-Sampson's recently launched first African Brand Investment Index provides invaluable evidence about how countries are perceived as investment destinations by the global investment community.

Africa investor (Ai) and Interbrand-Sampson's first African Brand Investment Index provides invaluable evidence about how countries are perceived as investment destinations by the global investment community. The first of its kind, the research outlines what investors think about Africa, and what African countries should be aware of when jostling for investment.

"African governments and business leaders alike need to realise the way in which they are promoting their countries is absolutely crucial for attracting and retaining both domestic and foreign investment, and the Brand Investment Survey and Index aims to highlight just this," said Hubert Danso, Vice Chairman and Managing Director at Africa investor.

This groundbreaking research highlights political stability, economic growth prospects and currency stability as the top three perception investment attributes.

According to the poll, Africa was considered the third most attractive investment destination after Southeast Asia and India. Unsurprisingly, South Africa emerged as the preferred investment destination, followed by Egypt, Ghana and Kenya, while Somalia was ranked to have the worst investment brand on the continent.

With 60% of those surveyed saying they rely on professional advisors as sources of information when exploring investment opportunities, many also felt that African governments are not doing enough to promote the region as an investment destination.

The issues highlighted around Africa's investment brand have much to do with political stability and regulatory practice. The Index also revealed that the majority of respondents feel that Africa will improve its investment brand profile over the next 12 months.

The key to being an attractive investment destination brand, says the study, is a combination of political and economic stability, with communications an important aspect of the mix. 57% of respondents rated political stability to be of high importance, with economic growth and stability of currency not far behind at 46% and 45% respectively.

When asked about positive associations with Africa, attributes such as potential, opportunity and growth powered by natural resources, and human resources featured, while technology was conspicuously absent.

Negative associations included corruption, political instability and poor infrastructure – factors, the report says, that holds back the image of Africa as an investment destination.

The survey suggests that while Africa is seen to have strengths such as being a welcoming, fast growing and ambitious continent, it is still not considered by many people to be stable, efficient and trustworthy enough for investing.

The report suggests that professional advisers and analysts, as the top two information sources for investors, are critical to improving Africa's investment brand. The future looks positive for the continent which emerged from the study with an overall Brand Investment Index of 75 out of 100. However, countries within Africa were generally considered to be poor at promoting their own investment potential.

"Africa has a great opportunity to harness the goodwill from the investment community to position brand Africa as a globally competitive investment destination," says Danso.

"The continent has made great strides implementing a raft of regulatory reforms to ensure it is business friendly and it's up to governments to commission adequate resources to communicate effectively in today's competitive and complex global investment information environment."

For Doug de Villiers, CEO of Interbrand-Sampson which ran the survey in partnership with Africa investor, it has proved an instructive exercise.

"We wanted to first understand the strength of the African investment brand in a competitive context, to establish the images associated with that brand, and to find out the positive or negative brand images attached to particular African countries."

For a copy of the full survey or further information:  www.africa-investor.com.