Africa’s leading financial institutions expressed their interest in financing Namibian participation in the energy sector at the Namibian International Energy Conference in Windhoek on Thursday.

“Local companies will be the ones growing into the future – banking and servicing them is a massive growth opportunity for us,” said Jonathan Ross, Head of Oil & Gas Coverage for Rand Merchant Bank.

“The real financing of an economy has to be through domestic companies. Even if we don’t have our entire local content policy drafted, Namibia can still start helping local companies with access to finance and capital formation,” said Paulo Gomes, Chairman of Orango Investment Corporation. “The issue of cost of capital goes back to the challenge of not having started the real process of capital formation.”