DURBAN, South Africa, July 6: Africa shows the best returns from foreign direct investment (FDI), according to a UN-World Bank report released at a World Economic Forum southern Africa summit here Monday, reports AFP.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) cited data from US transnational corporations showing that the profitability of their African affiliates had been consistently higher in recent years than that of affiliates in most other regions of the world.

"This is an important step to help change the image of Africa, to put the continent back on the investment-location map," UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in the report.

"US affiliates found that their investments in southern Africa yielded double what their average FDI investment return was — 25 per cent in 1997 as opposed to a world average 12 per cent." said David Bridgman of the World Bank, who

launched the report at the Durban summit.

"For the Japanese it was treble what their international returns tended to be — six per cent with a world average of 2.0 per cent. In two of the largest multinational investors you see the same picture emerging of very strong returns from this continent." said Bridgman.

Bridgman said the report ■showed that Africa's performing countries "are ignored in the morass of the sometimes negative news which comes out of the continent."

South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel wel-. corned the report.

"Too often the focus is on what's wrong with Africa." he

Manuel said the report showed the benefit of an increasing range of agreements between states covering doubletaxation and investment protection guarantees which "actually creates an environment with higher levels of certainty."