Browsing: Trade

Long gone are the days you hear of Africa and envision mud huts and malnourished babies.  Well, maybe long-gone is an over-statement because these unfathomable pasts are buried in very shallow time graves and ever threatening to re-emerge and haunt the continent again.

It is for this very reason that Africa, and its trade and development partners must harness the continent’s technology potential and put innovation at the forefront of every nation’s development agenda.

Why? For Africa, it is how the continent will keep those shallow graves buried and build a bright, healthy future and for the world—well, Africa is the market of the future. Just to bring this market into perspective – as of January 2021, in the heat of the global pandemic, African tech business enterprises have raised US$940 million, making the continent the strongest market for technology worldwide.

Impressive, right? While many on the continent may still …

Kenya has announced plans to revive small industries across the country, in a bid to spur value addition and market access for targeted products through projects led by the youth.

The Trade, Industrialization and Enterprise Development Principal Secretary Kirimi Kaberia said the ministry has completed mapping out villages and their unique products countrywide, according to Business Daily.

According to the PS, the Ministry is looking to attract more youth into manufacturing through cottage industries.

Kaberia said the government’s plan is to have functional industries in the next 12 months through transfer of resources in the rural areas.

“We want to have an environment where local people consume what they produce,” he said.

The plan, dubbed ‘one village, one product’, is part of Kenya’s Vision 2030.
Why Kenya’s manufacturing is uncompetitive

It is also part of the government’s plan of growing the contribution of the countries manufacturing to GDP from 11 …

Data by the bloc reveals that the sector provides livelihoods for about 80 per cent of the region’s workers, and accounts for about 65 per cent of foreign exchange earnings.

The continent, which COMESA Secretary General Chileshe Kapwepwe said last month has the potential to feed its self and export to the rest of the world, has remained a net food importer for the last 15 years.…

It is no brainer that many foreign countries have been eyeing Africa for trade and investments purposes. Africa is known of its rich mineral land and unexploited resources that mother countries have lacked required capital and technical skills to do it themselves from oil, diamonds, gold not to mention all the agricultural products such as coffee, tea, cocoa etc.

United States of America, one among the biggest ranked economies in the world has had interests in doing business in Africa since time immemorial, at the time when Vice President Richard Nixon after winding his trip in Africa recommended to then  President Dwight Eisenhower of the greater potential of drawing attention in Investing in Africa and so has been that not with U.S.A but the likes of China, United Kingdom, and other countries such as Japan as had their good sharable investment steps in doing business in the continent.

The Obama …

Enjoying some of the world’s highest annual economic growth rates, and by the measure of the amount of infrastructures works, the East African Community (EAC) is one of the world’s fastest-growing regional trade blocs. 

East Africa is undertaking some of the world’s grandest infrastructure works yet, ranging from fast-speed electric train railways and single cable bridges to imposing dams and oil and gas pipelines as well as multinational road networks.

It is just as well because trade on the continent is growing exponentially and is bound to grow even faster with the signing of the continent-wide free trade pact.  …

Concerns about the pandemic especially with new fast spreading mutations, heightened political activity and uncertainty around the shape of business and economic recovery continues weighing heavily on risk asset pricing in the local market.

The distribution of vaccines is off to a slow start especially in the developed countries while locally, news flow indicate vaccines will be available later this month than as previously indicated.…

Trade in the energy sector in Africa will be more lucrative to foreign and local investors if they identify that energy trading within the African continent is a low cost and high return venture less expensive but with high returns. …

Diplomatic passport holders must obtain prior approval from Somalia’s foreign affairs ministry.…

The UK and European Union are currently in the final stages of negotiation on the terms of their ‘divorce’. The talks have been characterized by a lot of talking, sulking, walk-aways, and renegotiations. It remains to be seen if the process will end in a deal or no deal as to the terms of trade. While the bickering goes on between the ‘parents’, it raises the issue of what will become of the ‘children’ after the break-up.  

The European Union is one of the major trading partners on the African continent. Countries like South Africa are the largest beneficiaries of this trade. Trade arrangements with the UK were initiated within the auspices of the European Union. As the UK sets out on a solo mission, what will become of these deals?  

According to forecasts by the London School of Economics, if the trade deal falls through, the UK would make …

BREXIT trade impacts in Southern Africa

If everything goes according to plan (and that’s a big statement), January 1st shall see the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union, its single market and customs agreements.

As much as I would like to, it is becoming increasingly hard to believe that the parties will conclude a trade deal in time for the official divorce date. I am sceptical of a “hard” BREXIT as I believe that some sort of policy extension will remain in place for quite some time; anything else would be economic madness and given the current pandemic no politician would allow that to happen. (I know what you might be thinking but, luckily, that kind of stupid is currently reserved for leaders across the Atlantic).

The EU is South Africa’s largest trade partner while South Africa has long and in-depth trade relations with the United Kingdom. …