Company in Mauritius
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BOTSWANA, 2017/07/16
A strong signal of growing business engagement with Africa by large U.S. corporations was the announcement last September by Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman of plans to invest over $1 billion in Africa over the next five years. Caterpillar is not a new-comer, having begun doing business on the continent in 1926. At last month's U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Washington, DC, David Picard, Caterpillar's regional manager for Africa and the Middle East, described some of the steps that have been taken since last year's announcement. He as well talked about the challenges and opportunities he sees, inclunding Nigeria, where the company has operated since 1948. He was interviewed by AllAfrica's Noluthando Crockett-Ntonga and Ladi Olorunyomi from Premium Times in Nigeria. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
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ANGOLA, 2015/12/11
Nigeria and Angola remain two of Jaguar Land Rover’s major markets in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the company’s director of operations for the region, Nigel Clarke. This is despite both economies feeling the result of the drop in oil prices over the last year. Angola gets roughly two-thirds of its revenue from oil.
The luxury car manufacturer, with its sub-Saharan headquarters in Pretoria, exports the bulk of its vehicles to eight markets in the region – Angola, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. However, over the next two years Jaguar Land Rover will focus on growing its business in six smaller markets – Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville, Malawi, Mozambique – through local country partners.
“Due to the expansion of our office in Pretoria and the fact a lot of of our processes and systems are presently in place, which has taken a long time, we are much additional ‘fitter’ to take on these markets.”