Africa's investment fortunes are shifting, as the 'Dark Continent' becomes gradually less dependant of its main trading partner, Europe, and attracts investor from fast-growing emerging countries.
The key to Africa's survival in weathering the financial storm is a revival in interest in the region's commodities, with investors from the BRIC countries searching for good opportunities.
"Africa is kind of a backyard of resources in terms of a lot of the world are looking further a field to get their resource supply and a lot of BRIC economies have actually done foreign direct investment into Africa," John Cleary, CIO and managing director at Focus Capital, told CNBC.
"We think foreign direct investment for the next 5-10 years will dwarf portfolio investment into Africa. So we think the potential is really high and only improving, and that's all positive for Africa in the long term," Cleary added.
Africa has benefited from a surge in Chinese investment in recent years. The country's trade patterns have changed, even though Europe is still the most important trading partner, Marion Muhlberger, emerging market analyst at Deutsche Bank told CNBC.
"The Chinese share in total trade with Africa has doubled within the last 13 years and this trend is going to continue as this makes Africa less dependent on business cycles within Europe and gives them the possibility not only to sell commodities but maybe also other products like manufactured goods to China," Muhlberger added.