Search Results for: Kenya

THE CIVIL conflict and political tension that has wracked South Sudan since December has delayed already difficult discussions about building a new oil pipeline to this troubled, oil-rich and landlocked country. As it stands, South Sudan – the world’s newest country – has only one option for exporting its crude: a pipeline cutting through Sudan – the country from which it seceded in 2011, following a decades-long civil war.…

The growth in e-payment systems in emerging markets can pose challenges for financial intelligence units (FIU) in such countries, who are often just establishing themselves and grappling with suspicious transaction report systems in the formal banking sector.

Kenya is a case in point.…

THE PUBLICATION in October 2013 of the latest international Financial Action Task Force (FATF) report on ‘hawala’ and other similar service providers (HOSSPs) has shed light on such alternative money remittance systems. These remain a complex area for anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) authorities to address. …

Botswana’s first private university, the Malaysian-owned Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (Limkokwing Botswana), has continued to flex its muscles in this diamond-rich Southern Africa nation, taking advantage of a fast growing tertiary education sector. Botswana’s college and university student (aged 18-24) enrollment has grown from 11.4% in 2007/08 to 16.4% in 2012, or 46,613 students.…

AFRICA’S promising cotton sector needs to reinvent itself by adding value, because 65% of the crop it grows is exported as raw material, industry leaders are arguing.

Processors need to tap new technology and modernize its machinery, the Kenya- based African Cotton and Textile Industries Federation (ACTIF) chairman Jaswinder Bedi has said.…

SUB-SAHARAN African makers of cosmetics and personal care products are profiting from a growing and increasingly stable regional market, where economic growth is increasing demand for personal luxuries.

A report, ‘Business in Africa – Corporate Insights’ by Dianna Games, Standard Bank South Africa estimates that more than half of Africa’s population would be living in urban areas by 2030 and 60% by 2050, when the population would be about 2.4 billion, compared to 1 billion now.…

A SALUTARY lesson learnt by the western world since the financial meltdown in 2008, is that there is no easy formula for ensuring economic growth. Despite the resilience of the United States and European institutions, markets and skills, restarting the economic engine has proved sluggish.…

INDIAN consumer product company Godrej has been pushing into Africa’s hair care market with four acquisitions in the last five years, putting it in a strategic position to compete with major western companies.

Selling hair colourants, hair extensions and soaps in Africa through brands such as Inecto, Renew, Tura and Darling, Godrej is banking on Africa’s fast growing demand for cosmetics and other personal care products and is moving towards becoming an established multinational.…

British universities have been partnering with the University of Hargeisa (UoH), of breakaway state Somaliland, to boost the institution’s international credibility.

Although international recognition has yet to be conferred on Somaliland since it separated from Somalia in 1991, its largest university with 6,500 students, located in the capital city of Hargeisa, been seeking foreign partners to supply a higher educational system to Somaliland students.…

BARACK Obama seems ready to accept an extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) for another 15 years before it expires in 2015, but sub-Saharan African textile manufacturers might have mixed feelings.

African ambassadors in Washington DC have been under strict instructions from their governments to lobby the United States Congress to renew the law, forming an ambassadors’ AGOA working group led by Ethiopian ambassador Girma Birru.…