Kenya mainly imports frozen tilapia, frozen mackerels, sardines, prawns and salmon, while the country exports frozen Nile perch, tuna, octopus, whole tilapia and lobsters notably to the European  Union.

On the other hand, avocado has been a significant contributor to the earnings in the horticulture sector. Last  Year, Kenya topped Africa’s avocado exports and was among the world’s top 10 producers. Avocado farmers earned Sh14.48 billion between January to November 2021.

KenTrade is in partnership with GIZ in this simplification exercise.…

• UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that an extended, multi-season drought is driving acute food insecurity in the region
• FAO said that 12 to 14 million people are now at risk as crops continue to wither and animals weaken
• Resource-based conflicts are escalating as competition for water and pasturelands increases, and malnutrition rates are rising in affected areas of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia

Multiple data, including that of the African Development Bank (AfDB) indicates that Africa holds the key for feeding the nine billion people that will be on Earth by 2050. 

While delivering a passionate speech at Iowa State University in the US in 2017, AfDB’s President Akinwumi Adesina noted that the continent sits on 65 percent of the uncultivated arable land left in the world. 

He said that what Africa does with agriculture will determine the future of food in the world.  Adesina also noted that the …

• Ghana has several opportunities for investors including abundant raw materials including gold, cocoa, and oil/gas
• It however faces several challenges that hinder foreign direct investment, among them costly and difficult financial services and lack of government transparency
• Low-cost labour, a national airline with well over 100 passenger connections and growing consumer markets are key elements attracting foreign investment into Ethiopia
• Companies often face long lead-times importing goods and dispatching exports due to logistical bottlenecks, corruption, high land-transportation costs, and bureaucratic delays

Ghana remains a favourable investment destination in Africa in 2022, despite the impact of the challenges the economy faces including the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Data by the US Department of State indicates that the economy has continued to rebound from the negative impact of the virus, and has made attracting foreign direct investment a priority. 

The economy has expanded at an average of 7 per cent since 2017 to 2020, …

Rising demand has pushed oil prices to a rising trend which may, in the long run, prove to be unsustainable. Food price inflation has reportedly reached the highest level since 2011. Further compounding the problem for households and businesses is the fact that in the United States consumer inflation has reached 5.5 per cent annually which is the highest it has been in 31 years.

Companies operating in Africa and the rest of the world need to consider these developments into their expectations and decisions. The question is how? How can companies inflation-proof, as it were, their finances to protect their viability?

Cash is always king in times of uncertainty and inflation. There are six ways that companies are well-advised to adapt to …

Adding debt of leverage to the capital structure of a company, also in the right instances can increase the return on equity and/or return on investment for shareholders. Chief executives of listed companies and their chief finance officers tend to wax lyrical about these metrics.

They do so for good reason because they are judged to either be doing a good job or poor job depending on whatever these numbers read. The better this metric looks the more likely a company executive can look forward to a fat bonus and pay package! In addition to being a tax shield for a company’s profits, debt can enhance the returns a company generates for its shareholders.

Take the following scenarios that take place under the exact same set of circumstances.…

There is a lot of hype around the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE).

For instance, it is said to have had the best performance of African stock market indices over the first nine months of 2020, according to a consolidated report by the African Markets platform. During that period the Zimbabwe All-Share Index, the main index of this financial market, grew by 612 per cent.

This was when values were calculated using local currency. When the values are calculated using US$ and Euros the market still posted some very impressive returns of 46.6 per cent and 40 per cent respectively. This implies that investors who made hard currency investments in African markets made the most money from their investments in Zimbabwe… A caveat is in order here because these are merely statistics…

In 2020, only Malawi and Rwanda had their stock markets post positive returns albeit marginal with returns of 6.8 …