Increasing Agricultural Productivity:
Encouraging Foreign Direct Investments in the COMCEC Region
45
projects. Most of these companies are exchange- listed global corporations active in the
processing and trading of agricultural products.
Table 17: Top 10 Companies: Number of Agricultural FDI Projects invested in the COMCEC
Region
Company name Source country
No of
projects
Global
projects*
% of global
projects**
Projects in last
12 months
Nestle Switzerland 23 346 6.6 2
Danone France 11 61 18 0
Savola Saudi Arabia 8 9 88.8 0
Olam International Singapore 8 26 30.7 3
Cargill United States 6 147 4 0
Barry Callebaut Switzerland 6 35 17.1 1
Altria United States 6 46 13 0
Tata Group India 4 239 1.6 0
Cevital Algeria 4 5 80 1
Carbon Positive UK 4 4 100 0
Source: fDi Intelligence from The Financial Times Ltd
* Total number of projects worldwide from the company regardless of report criteria.
** The share of global projects from the company which match report criteria.
The economic benefits these global companies provide to host economies are significant,
especially when taking into account the fact that one company invests in multiple investment
projects (i.e. Olam International, Nestle and others). In this perspective, and in absolute terms,
these companies contribute significantly to COMCEC’s overall growth strategy. Yet evaluating
their project average, generally they provide lower capital investment than average (i.e. average
of USD 64.48 million per project). With an average capital investment of USD 173.3 million per
FDI project, Tate Group forms a positive exception (see Table 18).
Table 18: Top 10 Companies: Jobs Created and Capital Investment
Company Name Jobs created Capital investment
Total Average per project Total (USD m) Average (USD m)
Nestle 5,411 235 1,299.30 56.50
Danone 2,165 196 520.80 47.30
Savola 2,581 322 549.00 68.60
Olam International 8,918 1,114 762.40 95.30
Cargill 1,465 244 428.70 71.50
Barry Callebaut 1,000 166 201.60 33.60
Altria 1,141 190 175.90 29.30
Tata Group 1,656 414 693.00 173.30
Cevital 1,959 489 315.10 78.80
Carbon Positive 1,144 286 212.40 53.10
Source: fDi Intelligence from The Financial Times Ltd