Article published by José Carlos Francisco in the June issue of La Gaveta Económica.
Although politically the Canary Islands are European and culturally also American, geographically we are African. More specifically, some tiny dots on the map of the continent where homo sapiens was born. Some kind of anomaly. For these geographical and proximity reasons, many analysts, especially foreigners, have proposed the African market as the Canary Islands' great strategic asset.
To understand the failure of such perspectives, it is worth mentioning some issues. The first is that the continent's economic development has been below the expectations of most institutions and analysts. Although Africa has a gigantic area, almost sixty times the size of Spain, its economy is not twice that of Spain. That is, with 1.2 billion inhabitants, it produces only 80% more than Spain. Of the 54 African countries, only South Africa, Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, Kenya, Ethiopia, Algeria, Angola and Morocco have a GDP higher than that of the Canary Islands. Only Angola and southern Africa surpass us in per-capita income and in some years, when oil is expensive, Equatorial Guinea.
The second issue that, in my opinion, explains the error in the forecasts is that, as Parag Khanna argues very well, what is important is not the usual political maps, but improved maps that reflect the demographics, ecology, infrastructures and basically the connection flows between the territories. If we did that exercise, we would see that the Canary Islands are really far from Africa. Indeed. Manchester or Frankfurt are further away from us than many African capitals, but the truth is that accessing them is simpler and cheaper. In other words, Europe, contrary to what traditional physical maps indicate, is closer than Africa. And Africa is closer to Europe than to us.
Despite what was previously expressed, the battle should not be considered lost. Binter's strategy of connecting with different cities in Morocco, Cape Verde, Gambia and Senegal is a transcendent step. Attempts to follow in their footsteps by “Armas” and “Fred Olsen” would be very good news. The implementation of construction companies, logistics centers and some agricultural companies mark the path for the future. The failures that some businessmen have experienced on the continent are also the seeds of future successes.
Africa will be very important in food supply. According to Stefano Liberti "everyone is investing in China for industries, in India for services. For food it is necessary to come to Africa." Even in countries close to us such as Senegal, Mali and Mauritania, companies linked to Saudi Arabia have purchased large areas of land to produce rice for the Saudi market.
Africa will also be important in oil production, at least as long as prices do not collapse, and the oil platform business will be a substantial niche for generating income and high-value employment on the islands. The maintenance of aircraft and complex equipment will also be a great opportunity, as well as the control and analysis of large databases of all types of information. If the implementation of head-quarters of companies in the Canary Islands makes sense, it is basically with those that carry out operations in countries around our African environment.
In short, we will continue talking about Africa because geography marks its mark, the dynamic demographics will take it to 2,000 million inhabitants, migratory pressures will intensify, European aid will inevitably increase and political conflicts will not end. The African imprint for good and bad will be much greater in our children and grandchildren than in us. It is very possible that with the appropriate diplomatic efforts, the Canary Islands will become the institutional and political center of a good part of the Spanish and European policies towards Africa. The “Trade Commission” that created the REF, the headquarters of “Casa África” and the Food Bank are seeds of more ambitious measures that can turn the islands into the node of institutional connection Europe-Africa.
