Refinitiv has expanded its economic data coverage of Africa.
The new data set consists of 500,000 pieces of nationally sourced time series data, covering 54 African nations, providing investment managers, central bankers, economists, and research teams with insight to uncover economic relationships and opportunities across the continent, on its Refinitiv Datasteam platform.
This announcement follows previous expansions of available data in order to boost its emerging market economic content. In 2019, it strengthened its coverage of China to cover a unique combination of economic and financial indicators. Refinitiv also plans to expand in Southeast Asia, including in Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia with delivery expected later this year.
Africa continues to develop critical infrastructure, telecommunications, digital technology and access to financial services for its 1.3bn people. The World Bank estimates that over 50 percent of African inhabitants will be under 25 by 2050. Refinitiv believes this presents substantial opportunities for investors who can spot important trends and make informed decisions based on robust and timely economic data.
Refinitiv Datastream offers global macroeconomics coverage to analyse macro environments, and better understand economic cycles to uncover trends and forecast market conditions. Customers can validate ideas and identify opportunities using its 14.2 million economic times series map trends, and access its charting tools, studies and 9,000 pre-built chart templates for commonly used valuation, performance, and technical and fundamental analysis.
Its economic data coverage for Africa is sourced from national statistical offices, central banks and other key national institutions. The content covers the entire breadth of economics categories in Datastream including national accounts, money and finance, prices, surveys, labour market, consumer, industry, government and external sectors. Meanwhile, international sources suchas OECD, World Bank, IMF, African Development Bank and Oxford Economics will offer comparable data and forecasts across the continent.
Securing reliable, detailed, timely, locally sourced data has not been easy for economists who have in the past had to use international sources which can take many months to update, and opportunities to monitor the market can be missed. Africa is an economically diverse continent, meaning economists and strategists need more timely access to country-specific data via national sources to create tailored business, policy, trading and investment strategies to meet specific goals.
Stuart Brown, group head of Enterprise Data Solutions, Refinitiv, said: “Africa’s growing, dynamic and fast evolving economies makes it a focal point for financial markets today and in the coming decades. As part of LSEG’s commitment to empowering the global markets with accurate and timely data, we are excited about making these unique datasets available via the Refinitiv Data Platform. Our economic data coverage of Africa will provide our customers with deeper and broader inputs for macroeconomic analyses and enable more effective investment strategies and economic research.”
Refinitiv is an LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group) business, and provider of financial markets data and infrastructure. Currently, it has recorded $6.25 billion in revenue, and has over 40,000 customers and 400,000 end users across 190 countries.
