Main Archives - Page 13 of 19 - AfricaBusiness.com

10Dec

By Josephine WawiraNo Comments

How Black Friday is giving Africa’s economy a lift

It is quite phenomenal how in recent years, both ecommerce players and retailers have used Black Friday to sweep thrifty shoppers off their feet. So much that the shopping event is no longer restricted to a single-day shopping spree but has rather taken over the entire month to become Black November. If you drove around the streets of Nairobi, Lagos and Johannesburg for instance, the number of billboards showing discounted Black Friday sales as well as digital advertisements are proof of the retailers’ craze to maximize consumer spend during the BF period. Undoubtedly, the ripple effect that Black Friday sales have on African economies cannot be overlooked. According to Black Friday Global, a marketing website, Black Friday sales are 1,331% and 1,952% higher than average-day sales in the c...

15Nov

By Kine Seck MercierNo Comments

Angola News, Benin News, Kenya News, Main, Nigeria News, Republic of Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Rwanda News, South Africa News, Startups, Uganda News, Zambia News

Demand for African Talent is Increasing

Strategies to share talent between Africa and France By Kiné Seck Mercier A young woman spends her youth in Nigeria, leaving to attend a university in London. She goes on to work in the United States, Ghana, South America, Kenya and Zambia, finally settling in Paris. In many ways, she is illustrating an increasingly common trend in younger generations—a desire to work abroad and to contribute to building the African economy. We wanted to examine this trend in more detail: What’s driving this new generation to work in Africa? What is the scale of this trend? What is the impact on other countries as rising leaders are drawn to opportunities in Africa? To answer these questions, we held a series of 10 Africa Leadership Dinners and conducted interviews to uncover what is at the root of this ...

The impact of Brexit on South Africa and Africa

17Oct

By Morne van der MerweNo Comments

African News, Main, South Africa News

The impact of Brexit on South Africa and Africa

By Morne van der Merwe, Managing Partner and Head of the Corporate/M&A Practice, Baker McKenzie Johannesburg Countries in Africa are preparing for the reality that a hard Brexit could lead to increased risk aversion and reduced investor appetite for trade in the region. Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), said recently that AfDB might revise its economic growth projections for Africa if global trade conditions worsened. The growth projections are currently 4% for 2019 and 4.1% in 2020. However, current world trade frictions are also providing many opportunities for the continent, as well as a chance for Africa to showcase its new African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), which now covers the world’s largest free trade area. South Africa is a ...

Tearing down barriers for the growth of African rural e-commerce

3Sep

By Josephine WawiraNo Comments

Main, Tanzania News

Tearing down barriers for the growth of African rural e-commerce

By Josephine Wawira The rise and growth of e-commerce in the world and primarily in Africa has created a lot of business opportunities, not only in urban but also in rural areas. The good news is that there is undoubtedly increased connectivity, reaching even the previously inaccessible remote villages across the continent and connecting them with e-commerce. Over the past approximately three years, the market has been noted to move substantially in the direction of developing logistics meant to tear down barriers for e-commerce penetration in rural markets. Consequently, online retailers can now reach customers in remote cities, while locals have access to a variety of products from major urban cities. While over 50% of the world is now connected to the internet, only 36% of the African p...

Why is America involved in the Mozambique “tuna scandal”?

4Aug

By Gil KapenNo Comments

Main, Mozambique News

Why is America involved in the Mozambique “tuna scandal”?

If you do business globally as a multinational company, employee or consultant, you might wish to follow the convoluted U.S. legal case against Lebanese ship salesman Jean Boustani. Boustani was the chief sales executive of a global shipbuilding company, Privinvest, based in the Middle East with operating shipyards in France, Germany and elsewhere. Privinvest has built vessels and systems for about 40 navies to protect their waters. In 2012, when the Mozambique government launched a series of maritime projects to build a tuna fishing fleet, shipyard facilities and a coastal navy to protect its waters, Boustani helped Privinvest win the contracts. But after Privinvest delivered the vessels and systems, Mozambique abandoned the projects, defaulted on $2 billion in debt financing and was accu...

28Jul

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

Africa Travel, Ethiopia News, Interview, Main

Hospitality industry development in Africa.

Interviews with global business leaders. Join Mark Willis, Chief Executive Officer, Middle East & Africa, Accor at #AHIF from 23-25 September 2019, Addis, Ethiopia. He will be speaking at our regional leader's panel to discuss Accor's growth strategies in Africa, having 143 hotels across the continent and another 60+ to open in the next 36 months. "Marriott International is a leading operator in Africa with 20,000 keys in 20 countries and 14,000 keys under development" - Alex Kyriakidis, President & Managing Director, Middle East & Africa, Marriott International. Join him at #AHIF from 23-25 September in Addis, Ethiopia. Africa is the place to be and for the next 10 years, it will be one of the fastest growing developing markets for the hospitality industry” - Filippo Sona M...

Can e-commerce be Africa’s economic goldmine?

3Jun

By Josephine WawiraNo Comments

Main, Tech

Can e-commerce be Africa’s economic goldmine?

Digital economy in Africa is snowballing, and in the process it’s creating new jobs and opportunities for digital entrepreneurs to explore a larger web market. Though e-commerce represents only 0.6% of all the transactions done in Africa, as compared to 12% in the USA and 20% in China; the budding nature of the industry does rightfully make one muse on the possibility, that e-commerce is indeed Africa’s economic goldmine. Facilitation of Cross Border eTrade The global market has shrunk to a large scale, and is now enabling billions of people to sell and purchase products across borders. This has been made possible by technological innovations that have birthed online marketplaces that enable e-trade between businesses (B2B), between consumers (C2C) and between businesses and consumers (B2C...

29May

By Baker McKenzieNo Comments

Ethiopia News, Main, Mauritius News, Senegal News, South Africa News, Tunisia News, Zimbabwe News

Funding Africa’s Infrastructure Gap

Key to enabling African economies to make the most of their opportunities is developing infrastructure in the region. Across the continent, new laws are being implemented and alternative sources of infrastructure funding are being sought in order to kick-start direly needed infrastructure projects. At the centre of it all is China, which is providing alternative sources financing to countries in Africa that have not been able to access funding in more traditional ways. The benefits are numerous, but African countries are also concerned about their growing dependence on China. Research released in 2018 from Baker McKenzie and IJGlobal (research) with data drawn exclusively from fully financed projects and excluding recent announcements of government funding commitments, shows that the value...

20May

By Baker McKenzieNo Comments

Main, South Africa News

Seven Things to Consider When Transacting in Africa

By Morne van der Merwe, Managing Partner, and Wildu du Plessis, Head of Africa at global law firm Baker McKenzie in Johannesburg Ahead of the Baker McKenzie African Transactional Summit taking place in Johannesburg in May 2019, Baker McKenzie lawyers based in Africa, alongside the Firm’s global Africa specialists, as well as lawyers from our African Relationship Firms from across the continent, share their knowledge about what investors should consider when transacting in Africa. Accept the uncertainty and gather knowledge Investors in Africa must consider geo-political and economic uncertainty on the continent as well as a plethora of country and region-specific governance, compliance and regulatory challenges when investing in the region. They must also contend with a critical lac...

African elephants under continued threat of poaching, warns UN-backed report

10May

By Africa BusinessNo Comments

African News, Main

African elephants under continued threat of poaching, warns UN-backed report

An updated assessment by a United Nations Environment Programme-administered treaty has confirmed that poaching continues to threaten the long-term survival of the African elephant. Based on the Proportion of Illegally Killed Elephants data, or PIKE, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has evaluated the levels of illegal killing through MIKE, the acronym for the Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants programme. MIKE has calculated that illegal killing is the chief cause of death for elephants. Evidence reveals that PIKE levels peaked in 2011 when an alarming 10 per cent of African elephants were poached, before steadily declining through 2017. That level has remained relatively unchanged throughout 2018. Such high PIKE levels are ...