Africa: future sugar exporter?
Africa’s sugar industry will become all the sweeter if predictions about its growth come off.
Edward George, head of soft commodities research at Ecobank, tells beyondbrics he expects that even though domestic demand is rising, Africa will become a net exporter of sugar within seven years if it boosts production as planned, depriving Brazil of a key export market. Continue reading »
Kenya: Indian bank sets up office ahead of elections
The Central Bank of India is on the hunt for business in Kenya. A government-controlled commercial bank whose branch network runs to 4,200, Mumbai-based CBI has become the east African country’s sixth foreign bank authorised to establish a representative office. Continue reading »
IBM in Ethiopia: it’s all about data
The link between one of the world’s most powerful corporate leaders and a small bank in Ethiopia might not be immediately obvious. In this case, it’s an IBM server, which powers Awash International Bank. But soon it could be a lot more if Ginni Rometty (pictured) has anything to do with it.
Rometty, IBM’s chief executive, is spending a week in Africa with her top 15 executives. It’s the first time so many of them have been in one place outside New York. It’s also the first time IBM has convened its chief executives from all over the continent. Continue reading »
Kenya: turning radio links into broadband for the countryside
Picture: Katrina Manson
Pupils at a school on the green slopes of Mount Kenya no longer have eyes for the blackboard. Instead they are transfixed by a $500 tablet.
Belinda, 19, touches the screen gingerly and is amazed to discover an icon that allows her to film herself within seconds of her first touch of a computer. So speedy is the take-up of tech know-how in Kenya’s first “white space” rural broadband pilot scheme, its backers hope the idea could one day be copied throughout the continent. Continue reading »
Kenya breaks ground on Africa’s silicon savannah
Artist's impression
Kenya has begun converting 5,000 acres of savannah dotted with antelopes and ringed by hills into “the most modern city in Africa”. Contractors begin work this week on the $10bn Konza Techno City project, 60km south of the capital Nairobi, which has been dubbed Kenya’s Silicon Savannah. Continue reading »
Kenya: a gem of a market move
The clang of a bell announced the launch of Kenya’s new small and midcap market segment on Tuesday, but its founders are determined that will be the only old-fashioned thing about it.
The Growth Enterprise Market Segment (GEMS) could be the solution to several constraints on the growth of Kenya’s economy, which relies on small business for 40 per cent of the country’s $36bn GDP, and may provide the route for Kenyans to invest in the country’s nascent natural resource sector. Continue reading »
Kenya: a confident pre-poll rate cut
Could there be a bigger show of bravado? While observers worry that Kenya’s economy could go awry come the March presidential elections, the monetary policy committee is feeling good.
For the fourth time in a row, it gave a vote of confidence to Kenya’s economy by lowering the central bank rate, this time taking it down 150 basis points to 9.50 per cent. This time last year it was 18 per cent. And not only did it lower the rate, but the 150bp reduction beat analyst predictions of 100bp. Continue reading »
The Horn of Africa: rebuilding or in meltdown?
There could hardly be a more poignant or devastating reminder of divisive instability that has spread throughout the Horn of Africa.
On Monday, I moderated a discussion panel on how arts and literature can help rebuild society in the Horn of Africa. But I shouldn’t have been there at all. Continue reading »
Kenya: punching below its weight
You know you’re in trouble when the World Bank counts on an election year to pull your economy out of the doldrums. Especially if you’re Kenya.
Thanks to “another difficult year” in 2012, the World Bank says Kenya will likely miss an earlier predicted growth rate of 5 per cent this year, managing only 4.3 per cent, a drop on the 4.4 per cent of 2011 and far too low to realise the country’s aim to become a middle-income country by 2020. Continue reading »
Somaliland: oil first, recognition later
UK-listed Genel Energy and Ophir Energy, and Australia-listed Jacka Resources, are starting to explore for oil in earnest in the breakaway state, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991. Continue reading »
S Sudan: new skyscraper, bad timing
Just as South Sudan’s finances are running out and investors are thinking about packing up and leaving, an “ultra-modern” office block might seem the least viable investment going.
But try telling that to the developers behind the $17m project, UAP Holdings. The 12-storey Equatoria Tower is set to be the tallest building in Juba, the southern capital more famed for dust and containers that double as homes than high rises, or anything approaching modern. Continue reading »
Nairobi the regional hub: another day, another opening
The latest addition to Nairobi’s regional hub status comes from South African bank FirstRand, which opens a representative office in Kenya this week.
The bank joins three others that have opened up in Nairobi in the past four years, along with corporates such as Samsung and PwC and companies set on regional expansion such as Nestlé and Dow Chemicals, the $60bn company whose CEO Andrew Liveris visited Nairobi this week. Continue reading »
Sierra Leone: a one-stock shop
A random assortment of dark wood desks and chairs crowd the room. The tatty carpet is no longer glamorous but it is still just about red. A big-handled bell sits on a centre table.
Welcome to the Sierra Leone Stock Exchange. Number of stocks traded: one. Continue reading »
East Africa: development funds put $40m into private equity for microfinance
East Africa has just gained its 30th home-based private equity fund.
Progression Capital Africa’s first fund, which was launched in Nairobi on Thursday, will put $40m to work in microfinance across the region. Investing funds from three European state-backed development institutions, it’s ready to accept gains of only 10 per cent to 15 per cent – far less than the 30 per cent sought by private sector investors – as long as the projects generate decent social benefits. Continue reading »
Kenya stock market: potato & cabbage
Peter Mwangi, CEO of the Nairobi Securities Exchange, is fed up of Kenyans getting investment wrong.
The NSE had a calamitous year in 2011, with the all-share index falling by a full 30.6 per cent, driven down by a currency crisis that gathered force late in the year.
But foreign investors didn’t seem to mind, staying put as domestic investors deserted the market. Foreign fund managers have now reaped the benefits, enjoying an 11.5 per cent gain in the year to date. The locals have lost out. Continue reading »
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