Category Archives: Main

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 […]

The impact of Brexit on South Africa and Africa

View from the Carlton Centre, Africa's tallest building. Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. Photo Credit: Adamina (www.flickr.com).

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 […]

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

A man rides a bicycle on a market road in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Image by Oxford Media Library

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 […]

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

A view from the ferry to Katembe of the Maputo CBD 2014. 24 May 2014. Author AP1MZ (Wikipedia)

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 […]

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 […]

Can e-commerce be Africa’s economic goldmine?

Image by Maxx-Studio

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 […]

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 […]

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 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 […]

An inter-connected African aviation industry could deliver USD $29bn in direct revenue

AviaDev, Africa’s premier event dedicated to developing connectivity to, from and within the African continent, in conjunction with partners, MIDAS Aviation and Futureneers Advisors have estimated the potential revenue from new African aviation routes could yield USD $29bn in direct revenue. This revenue, which is more than the individual GDP’s of 70% of the countries […]

A Future Option for African Fast Intercity Coastal Transportation

African Business News

The recent redevelopment and upgrading of Kenya’s Mombasa – Nairobi railway line has revealed a market for faster, affordable intercity passenger transportation services between African cities. Following the recent tragedy of Ethiopian Airlines, the African passenger transportation market might be ready to consider an alternative technology capable of providing affordable, fast travel between several pairs […]

Tapping into Digital Technology Platforms to Increase Agriculture Productivity in Africa

African Business News

by Johan Burger Introduction Africa is a bit of an anomaly as far as agriculture is concerned. On the one hand, it has 65% of the world’s available uncultivated arable land, and it has the potential to feed the world. However, a country such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has the […]

Trends and Events in Africa 2018

Map of the REC Pillars of the African Economic Community. Photo Credit: Wikipedia

by Johan Burger 2018 has been an interesting year for Africa, with various events and trends becoming visible. 2016 saw the effects of the slowdown of China’s economic growth due to its rebalancing of its economy and the end of the commodity price super cycle. 2017 brought some relief. In Africa, 2018 demonstrated a number […]

Friday@Noon on Manufacturing in Africa: 2018

African Business News

by Johan Burger The NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies publishes a weekly newsletter on issues relevant to Africa. This paper is based on issues addressed in the newsletter. Manufacturing in Africa Manufacturing and industrialisation are the current buzzwords for transforming Africa’s economies. In order to reduce any dependence on the extraction and sale of raw […]

Friday@Noon on Economic Development in Africa: 2018

Along the east coast, north from Durban are huge sugar cane fields. Author: (WT-en) Fluglotse2000 at English Wikivoyage aka. User:Africaspotter Wikipedia.org

by Johan Burger The NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies publishes a weekly newsletter on issues relevant to Africa. This paper is based on issues addressed in the newsletter. The year 2018 saw numerous cases of economic development on the African continent. This would include trade, etc. Africa The US$2 trillion-plus Sub-Saharan Africa economy continues to […]

Friday@Noon on Foreign Investment in Africa: 2018

African Business News

by Johan Burger The NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies publishes a weekly newsletter on issues relevant to Africa. This paper is based on issues addressed in the newsletter. Africa has been the recipient of foreign investment form a variety of foreign countries. In addition to the normal investors such as China, Japan, India, etc., we […]

Friday@Noon on Financial Services in Africa: 2018

by Johan Burger The NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies publishes a weekly newsletter on issues relevant to Africa. This paper is based on issues addressed in the newsletter. The financial services industry in Africa has seen a lot of development throughout the past few years, as was the case in 2018. Mobile telephony has driven […]

Friday@Noon on the Horn of Africa: 2018

Africa-regions. Source: Wikipedia

by Johan Burger The NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies publishes a weekly newsletter on issues relevant to Africa. This paper is based on issues addressed in the newsletter. The Horn of Africa has increasingly become the scene of activity, driven not only by players in the region, but also from abroad. For the purposes of […]

Friday@Noon on Mining in Africa: 2018

by Johan Burger The NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies publishes a weekly newsletter on issues relevant to Africa. This paper is based on issues addressed in the newsletter. Various mining initiatives and challenges occurred during 2018. Below is a snapshot of some of it. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Tanzania Tanzania wants […]

Friday@Noon on Infrastructure in Africa: 2018

by Johan Burger The NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies publishes a weekly newsletter on issues relevant to Africa. This paper is based on issues addressed in the newsletter. General Africa has vast infrastructure needs. According to the AfDB, Africa’s infrastructure requirements are estimated to be between US$130 billion and US$170 billion, far higher than the […]

Friday@Noon on Regional Integration in Africa: 2018

by Johan Burger The NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies publishes a weekly newsletter on issues relevant to Africa. This paper is based on issues addressed in the newsletter. Regional integration has become a high profile intervention and is seen as the route to economic integration and increasing intra-African trade. Some commentators are of the opinion […]

Investing in Africa: An Outlook on Nigeria and Ethiopia

Africa-regions. Source: Wikipedia

Itumeleng Mukhovha, an associate in the Corporate/M&A practice at Baker McKenzie in Johannesburg One can easily assume that international investors are deterred from investing in Africa given the growing need to weather a global financial crisis, which has been distorted by Brexit, rising geopolitical tensions, tightened global liquidity conditions, leveraged loans and sketchy debts that […]