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Business / Trade in Southern Africa

  • Economic integration is helping boost trade and investment in Africa

    BOTSWANA, 2016/05/13 The collapse of virtual borders is one of the majority remarkable things to have happened in our lifetimes. In the world of cyberspace, time and distance have become almost peripheral considerations at the same time as it comes to doing business. Services from software development to accounting can be delivered across the world in the blink of an eye. Next business leaders will struggle to imagine an era at the same time as communication was neither immediate nor virtually free.
  • Africa, India keen on strengthening bilateral relations

    INDIA, 2016/03/19 Trade between India and Africa has risen several folds over the years. According to statistics, bilateral trade grew to 72 billion US dollars in the fiscal 2014-15 from 30 billion in 2007. It is against this backdrop that the 11th India-Africa Business Conclave in New Delhi was aimed at boosting bilateral relations between the two. The summit was attended by over 400 delegates from 37 African nations.
  • Egypt's Sisi opens Africa economic summit to boost investment

    EGYPT, 2016/02/21 EGYPT’S President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi opened on Saturday an economic summit attended by African leaders and businessmen that aims to boost trade and investment across the continent. Additional than 1,200 delegates inclunding some heads of national will negotiate business agreements for the next two days at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, to attract private sector investments in Africa.
  • South Africa Exchange Rate January 2016

    SOUTH AFRICA, 2016/01/28 South Africa’s rand (ZAR) has lost ground against the U.S. dollar in recent weeks, thus continuing a trend that began in mid-2011. The currency tumbled to a new record-low on 20 January at the same time as it traded at 16.94 ZAR per USD. The figure was 12.43% weaker than on the same day in the previous month and 45.6% weaker on an annual basis. The currency has been under escalating pressure amid a myriad of economic problems. The rand’s price plummeted against the greenback next President Jacob Zuma dismissed Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene in a widely criticized move that crashed the country’s stock market.
  • What Africa Should Be Pushing For In The WTO Talks

    WORLD, 2015/12/16 The World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Summit due to be held in Nairobi this week is significant to Kenya for two reasons. Firstly, it’s the initial WTO Summit to be held in Africa and secondly, it’s the initial time the Summit is happened next what is largely considered to the failure that was the Doha round back in 2008. So what should Kenya, and indeed Africa, be pushing for during this round? Africa should firstly, use this round to push for the reclassification of nations such as India, China and Brazil that still fall under the docket of ‘developing’ nations. Currently, such nations essentially are lumped together with Africa in negotiations despite the fact that over the completed seven years these nations have significantly ramped up their presence and role in world trade. China’s share of world trade stands at about 12 %, India stands at 2 % and Brazil stands at 1.2 %. Although Africa’s share of world trade is 3.5 % that is a share at continental level; Kenya’s share of world trade is 0.03 %. Therefore, Africa as a bloc should use this Summit as an opportunity to push for a additional sophisticated classification of nations where the % of contribution to world trade preponderates rather that GDP per capita.
  • NO BOUNDARIES Africa could unleash billions of dollars if North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa worked together

    AFRICA, 2015/12/16 Deserts are notoriously shape shifting. Viewed one way, they are hostile and intimidating environment—impassable as a snake pit. From presently on compared with mountains, forests, or the high seas, they’re invitingly easy to traverse. In Africa, the Sahara Desert is as puzzling—at once the continent’s superhighway and its Great Wall. For centuries, Arab traders crisscrossed the Sahara, east to west, spreading Islam from Lamu to Timbuktu. Arabic vocabulary married Bantu languages to form Kiswahili. France’s colonial sweep of west and North Africa left an extra common language to unite tens of millions of African people, even where Islam had not. Egypt has shared the Nile River with Sudan and Ethiopia since the beginning of time. Today, migrants from Senegal and Ivory Coast have built diaspora communities in north Africa, and vice versa. Recent events in Mali show that terror groups better known for violence in the Middle East migrate just as easily. In the eyes of world business, the Middle East North Africa region is irreconcilably different from Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Additional than twenty agreements signed as President Zuma hosts President Xi Jinping on a National Visit

    CHINA, 2015/12/04 Twenty-six agreements worth R94 billion were signed today, 2 December 2015 at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, taking bilateral cooperation between China and South Africa to a higher level. President Jacob Zuma today hosted his counterpart His Excellency the President of the People's Republic of China, Mr Xi Jinping who is in South Africa on a National Visit. The two Heads of National used the National Visit to evaluate the evolution completed by the two nations since the conclusion of the Five to-Ten Year Strategic Programme for Cooperation adopted in December 2014, during a National Visit by President Zuma to the People's Republic of China. In this regard, the two leaders received evolution completed in the implementation of Strategic Programme with specific reference to the six priority areas identified for 2015, as follows:
  • Zimbabwe: Xi Jinping In Harare, First Visit Of Chinese Leader In 20 Years

    CHINA, 2015/12/02 Chinese President Xi Jinping landed Tuesday morning in Harare and was greeted with a 21-gun salute by his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe. This marks the initial visit of a Chinese leader to the country since 1996. The visit shows Beijing’s interest in “cementing relations between the two nations”, as specified by Xi, who applauded Zimbabwe’s role as acting chair of the African Union in favoring and reinforcing the development of the continent”. China last year invested $238 million in Zimbabwe, becoming its initial economic partner.
  • i3 Summit, hosted by Sanlam, former South African finance minister Trevor Manuel

    ETHIOPIA, 2015/11/20 At the recent i3 Summit, hosted by Sanlam, former South African finance minister Trevor Manuel shared his views on the majority significant investment challenges that South Africa and Africa currently face – and offered a few solutions. Ethiopia a poster child for economic development Manuel held up Ethiopia as one of the majority dynamic economies on the continent. “Ethiopia is a poster child for ‘new economy’ development,” Manuel said. “The New Climate Economy Report shows that it’s possible to stimulate increase and reduce emissions at the same time.” Ethiopia is on the road to sustainable economic development with the well-designed urbanisation of Addis Ababa boasting, part other things, the initial light rail system in Africa. It has transformed itself from a country associated with starvation to one with thriving agricultural and forestry sectors. Much of the infrastructure development comes from private investment .
  • Africa-India: Analyzing The Conditions And Stakes Of A Win-Win Partnership

    INDIA, 2015/11/17 The Indo-African partnership has been rooted in the spirit of the Afro-Asian conference held at Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955. Cemented by a common stand against colonization and racism, today this partnership is at a turning point motored by the stellar economic increase in the two regions and the growing exchange between them. The goal of shared development through cooperation between the two regions is a perspective that is in line with the reduction of world poverty as enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals. Understandably, the third edition of the Africa-India Forum Summit generates a lot of interest. The Summit this year was much larger than in previous years, with participation from 54 African nations. Participation in the previous two summits, held in 2008 and 2011, was limited to Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in accord with the Banjul Agreement. The 2015 Summit has given better privilege to bilateral endeavours. That said, the implication of regional actors is an investment of the India-Africa partnership and should continue, in the interest of promoting regional development in Africa. Additionally, regional cooperation provides a platform for opinion building and sharing common positions in international organizations. Meanwhile, keeping the regional dimension alive, the unprecedented levels of participation in the third Summit is an opportunity to be explored. The scale of this Summit provides an occasion to renew and further accelerate the India-Africa partnership.