Universities in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Madagascar, Nigeria and Yemen have been highlighted as institutions where academics or students were killed because of their beliefs or activism in the past academic year, though a report from campaign group Scholars at Risk (SAR).…

Higher education institutions are being warned they could be a target for money laundering, with fees being financed by the proceeds of crime, including corruption, which might also buy property, cars and other items for students.

The problem has been highlighted in a series of reports.…

Spain, which in the early Middle Ages was part of Islamic state called Al-Andalus – remembered as a golden age of Spanish tolerance and reason – has finally started to seriously play to win in the global halal market, through tourism and exports.…

Spain has been expanding its halal tourism and food sales, as it leverages its geographical proximity to Muslim countries in north Africa to provide travel and accommodation services.

In the CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index 2021, by CrescentRating & Mastercard, Spain climbed six positions to the 16th in the top non-Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) destinations (https://www.crescentrating.com/reports/global-muslim-travel-index-2021.html).…

Sub-Saharan Africa has natural resources that aids the development of renewable energy, it has lots of sun, plentiful wind, and much potentially sustainable biomass. With the development of small-scale affordable renewable energy technologies, such systems have been promoted by major aid agencies keen to prevent deforestation and excessive reliance on fossil fuels, that – even where they are plentiful, have not usually led to widespread economic development.

African universities must undertake strategic collaborations, boost innovation and develop entrepreneurial initiatives, targeting the needs of students to remain relevant in the future, a higher education conference in Nigeria has been told. These concerns formed the core of discussions when public and private sector tertiary education experts gathered over Zoom and in-person in Lagos to discuss the future of African universities at the second edition of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) International Week conference.…

THE NEED for a proactive effort to improve the teaching and researching of physics in sub-Saharan Africa, as a foundation for critically important scientific work, has been highlighted in a new report from the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and the UK-based Institute of Physics (IOP).…

The leaders of Nigeria’s Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) have unveiled spending priorities for a government agency that spent Nigerian Naira NGN300 billion (USD728 million) this past academic year (2020-1).

Speaking at the fund’s Taxpayers’ Forum, in Lagos, on August 12, Mr Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, the chairman of the fund’s board of trustees, said, working with Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the fund had increased its Tertiary Education Tax take from NGN200 billion (USD485 million) and has tasked the FIRS to increase its tertiary education tax collection to NGN500 billion for next year (USD1.21 billion).…

AS COVID-19 batters the world into its second year of the most destructive global pandemic since the Spanish Flu of 1919, its impact on AML/CFT is becoming clearer. FATF released an updated assessment in December (2020) (1) highlighting an increase in certain predicate offences caused by the disease itself and the increased online activity it has generated: phishing scams, business compromise fraud; internet child sex exploitation; corruption and fraud related to medical supply contracts; and property thefts of vacant homes and offices.…

“Yes, to coexistence.” It sounds like a platitude – yet sometimes, it is simply a statement describing a most important principle of real life. This statement is written on the entrance of the Max Rayne Hand in Hand School in Jerusalem, that teaches Jews and Arab students side-by-side.…

Nigeria’s National University Commission (NUC) has moved ahead with a major expansion of Nigeria’s private higher education sector, granting provisional licenses to 20 new private universities. The approval brings the number of private universities in Nigeria to 99, increasing the country’s overall university tally to 197.…

After a three-year trial, judge Marco Tremolada acquitted energy companies Eni and Shell and 13 executives from both companies, including Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi, of being associated with graft in Nigeria. In a Milan court March 17, the judge ruled there was no case to answer over the companies’ USD1.3 billion acquisition of Nigeria’s OPL 245 offshore oilfield, amidst allegations that USD1.1 billion of that was pocketed by politicians and middlemen.…

An international model of rules for monitoring and control cryptocurrency operators and crypto-exchanges’ compliance with anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regulations worldwide, is needed, some AML/CFT specialists are arguing. Nina Kerkez, market planning director at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, said regulatory frameworks are currently being developed “at an alarming rate” in a wide range of jurisdictions, with significant divergences apparent in, for example, KYC/CDD requirements and when to file suspicious activity reports (SARs).…

EUROPEAN confectionery and sugar processing associations have appealed to the European Parliament not to reimpose market controls on the European Union’s (EU) sugar sector. MEPs have pressed for new restrictions during the ongoing negotiations about reforming the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).…

UK universities are turning a blind eye to Nigerian political elites laundering dirty money through their fees, according to a paper published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from West Africa expert and non-resident scholar, Matthew Page. Commissioned by the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, ‘West African Elites’ Spending on UK Schools and Universities: A Closer Look’ (1), flags up the “unexplained wealth” used by Nigerian politicians and public officials to pay British university and boarding school fees.…

UK colleges and universities are complicit in Nigerian corruption and money laundering, according to a report commissioned by British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, from West Africa expert, Matthew Page. Published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (for whom Page is a non-resident scholar), ‘West African Elites’ Spending on UK Schools and Universities: A Closer Look’ (1), points to “unexplained wealth” used to pay British university and boarding school fees way above the salary levels of prominent politically exposed persons (PEPs).…

UK universities and private schools are turning a blind eye to Nigerian political elites laundering dirty money through their fees and support payments to their children, according to a paper published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Sara Lewis and Samuel Okocha report.…

UK universities and private schools are turning a blind eye to Nigerian political elites laundering dirty money through their fees and support payments to their children, according to a paper published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Sara Lewis and Samuel Okocha report.…

International News Services’ Nigeria correspondent, Samuel Okocha, has produced a photographic book showing a candid glimpse of the city. “It’s also a product of my strong interests in street photography which has been therapeutic for me,” Samuel said. “Street photography helps me slow down in a crazy fast moving city like Lagos.…

COVID-19 has been tough for all Nigerian higher education institutions, their staff and students, but one bright spark has been the fact that universities have developed remote learning capacities that will stand them in good stead for the future.

One university that has used Covid-19 to evaluate and improve its remote learning systems is the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), a public university based in Ife, east of Ibadan.…

COVID-19 has been tough for all Nigerian higher education institutions, their staff and students, but one bright spark has been the fact that universities have developed remote learning capacities that will stand them in good stead for the future.

One university that has used Covid-19 to evaluate and improve its remote learning systems is the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), a public university based in Ife, east of Ibadan.…

China’s recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) materials market is heading for another distortion with repercussions for apparel and footwear brands. While the likes of Adidas, Nike and Decathlon continue shifting from virgin fibre to recycled fibre to improve their environmental impact standings, China’s PET market is heading for another distortion, raising the spectre for supply bottlenecks and price increases.  …

Covid-19 has ripped through the economy of the Indian Ocean country Mauritius, but it has helped island business advisory agency managing director Sheila Ujoodha make her case to clients that risk assessments and contingency planning are important.

The owner of SmarTree Consulting (SCL) since she created the company in 2018, Ujoodha is busy suggesting how businesses can cope with the pandemic, through its services of internal audit, risk assessment and regulatory consulting.…

The cutting edge IT field of quantum computing is developing across Africa, with South Africa considered the hub, in part through an IBM centre in Johannesburg that enables academics throughout the continent to freely access its quantum computer network, based in the USA, through the cloud.…

Taking up a new job where you are responsible for overseeing how a business operates in three countries during a global health pandemic is not a task many financial professionals would take on lightly. But that is what Busola Doregos, a Nigerian accountant working in Uganda has just done. …

With Nigeria continuing its lockdown closure of education institutions into late June, the country’s private universities are continuing to develop online learning, while many public universities are waiting for their physical facilities to reopen before restarting services. Access to such buildings by essential staff have eased from June 2, with Nigerian government loosening a nationwide curfew from 8pm and 6am, which will now be in force from 10pm to 4am until June 29.…

Universities and other tertiary education institutions in northeast Nigeria are working to recover from severe disruptions to operations and academic life, in some cases lengthy closures and falls in enrollments caused by attacks from insurgent group Boko Haram.

Its activity has become less intense in recent years following aggressive campaigns by the Nigerian military, although attacks such that last month (June) on a village in north-eastern Borno state, where 81 people were killed, show the group has yet to be defeated.…

THE HIGHER education system in the Francophone west African country of Benin is getting back to work, after the government said a ban on classes being held to fight the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic would end on May 11.

However, while the public higher education segment has quickly returned to teaching, partly leveraging a new remote learning system, the country’s private universities have struggled to return to normal, with one major obstacle being cross-border movement controls imposed on overseas students from Nigeria, who have been a key component of their classes.…

THE HIGHER education system in the Francophone west African country of Benin is getting back to work, after the government said a ban on classes being held to fight the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic would end on May 11.

However, while the public higher education segment has quickly returned to teaching, partly leveraging a new remote learning system, the country’s private universities have struggled to return to normal, with one major obstacle being cross-border movement controls imposed on overseas students from Nigeria, who have been a key component of their classes.…

Only a handful of countries in the Middle East and Africa have dedicated whistleblowing laws – South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, Uganda, Ghana, Liberia, Algeria, Morocco, and the Israel-occupied Palestinian territories, according to Blueprint for Free Speech, a charity promoting freedom of expression (https://www.blueprintforfreespeech.net/).…

Nigeria’s universities have been struggling to work online following the March 20 federal government shutdown of all education institutions to restrict public gatherings and curb the spread of the coronavirus. The shutdown has left campuses deserted as students returned to their various homes.…

South Africa’s electronic vaping product (EVP) market is growing fast – at 5% a year, according to management consultant Canback Consulting, and already estimated to be worth South African Rand ZAR1.16 billion (EUR82.8 million/USD68.2 billion). To target such growth, Philip Morris South Africa (PMSA) opened its first standalone IQOS store last August (2019), selling its smoke-free devices and associated product in the upmarket Johannesburg neighbourhood of Sandton, adding to the 11 kiosks in malls it was already operating in the provinces of Gauteng, Western Cape and Kwazulu-Natal.…

AFRICA is commonly hailed as the world’s next big focus of economic growth, but for the civil aviation industry, this prospect will require significant investment in new intra-African routes and related airport and ATC infrastructure. It will also require governments to remove immigration barriers preventing African air travellers flying to other countries on their home continent.…

IMPROVING on performance in AML/CFT is never a simple process, and that is especially a case with a country such as Bulgaria which has had a long-standing corruption problem, causing this east European country to be under special monitoring by the European Commission from the day it joined the European Union (EU) in 2007.…

Kenya will start to grow genetically modified cotton this year, becoming the first country to do so in Eastern Africa. The move is significant as it is likely to inspire other counties in the region start to grow Bt cotton hybrids that are resistant to African bollworm and other pests.…

NORTH Africa is a region where care for appearance, grooming and personal hygiene is integral to its cultural DNA, so while personal care product majors have a strong presence, it is maybe no surprise that local beauty manufacturers continue to bubble up with fresh ideas and products that capture the imagination of consumers.…

Brands delivering natural skin care, hair and colour cosmetics items are responding to the growing sophistication of consumers in West Africa who are increasingly looking to purchase natural products. Businesses in the region’s beauty sector say quality levels are improving, with manufacturing executives telling Soap Perfumery & Cosmetics (SPC) at the Beauty West Africa Conference, in Lagos, on November 18-20 (2019), that local products are improving, with aromas and textures becoming more sophisticated, and products being delivered in increasingly eye-catching packaging.…

The challenge to increase the participation of African women in science, technology and innovation (STI) tertiary education jobs and courses could be addressed by increasing the amount of such topics taught to girls in primary and secondary schools, Prof. Alice Pell, the former vice provost at New York state, USA’s Cornell University, told a conference of senior female African academics.…

Beauty markets in sub-Saharan Africa are becoming more sophisticated, and with this comes an increasing desire by consumers to use cosmetics that better match their own skin and hair characteristics, rather than utilising products that of more universal appeal.

Nigeria’s personal care product industry continues to grow, and given its population is the largest in Africa – now estimated by the United Nations at 200 million – this market inevitably has the most potential in the continent.…

Chinese upstream textile producers are increasing production as fears grow that the trade war with the US will hurt exports of apparel and other textile products, now additional 10% tariffs are to be levied on a wide range of China-made textile and clothing products from September 1.…

JAPAN and South Korea have many similarities in AML/CFT terms, being the only countries in north-east Asia with democratic, open societies, who also run their economies according to standard free market principles. They are also both developed industrial economies in which the rule of law is applied consistently and transparently.…

EVERY manufacturing and agricultural industry has an impact on climate change – and the tobacco sector is no different. Faced with long-standing criticism of the health impact of its products, the tobacco industry is now facing attacks that its work generates carbon emissions and hence climate change.…

IT is now two years since the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) headquarters moved from London to Abidjan, in Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) in July 2017, a move ICCO called a “turning point that will bear fruit in the years to come.”…

AFRICA is without doubt the continent to watch for airport and air traffic control investment in the future. It is the world’s second most populous continent (home to more than 1.2 billion people), and according to Airports Council International (World) – ACI World – Africa was the fastest growing region for air passenger traffic in 2017 and 2018, which rose 6.3% in 2017 year-on-year and 10.8% in 2018 to June year-to-date, year-on-year.…

BETTER cooperation between accountants, financial institutions and financial technology firms could underpin the sustainability of impressive recent growth in mobile banking across west Africa.

With an overwhelming majority of the region’s population – which exceeds 350 million people – lacking access to formal banking services, mobile telephony, which is far more widespread, offers a portal to financial inclusion.…

THE EGYPTIAN economy is still struggling to overcome the problem of low hard currency reserves, a challenge that has negatively affected the local paints and coatings industry due its high dependence on imports.

“There has been a crisis in terms of availability of US dollars to purchase raw materials and most of the raw materials are imported,” said Himanshu Vasisht, project lead for energy and chemicals at India-based market researcher Mordor Intelligence.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has included four American external territories – Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa – on a proposed blacklist of weak AML/CFT jurisdictions released today (Feb 13).

Brussels’ updated list includes 12 countries that are viewed with concern by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) – the Bahamas, Botswana, North Korea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Iran, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Syria, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia and Yemen. …

BRITAIN’S Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has closed two long-running major investigations into allegations of corruption and bribery at two of the UK’s largest companies: aero-engine maker Rolls-Royce and medicine manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline. Rolls-Royce has been subject to a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), approved in January 2017, where it paid a GBP497.25 million (USD616 million) plus interest penalty and GBP13 million costs (USD16.1 million) over 12 counts of conspiracy to corrupt, false accounting and failure to prevent bribery in Indonesia, Thailand, India, Russia, Nigeria, China and Malaysia.…

THE WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) Disputes Settlement Body (DSB) has approved establishing disputes settlement panels ruling sought by the USA on whether retaliatory duties imposed by the European Union (EU), Canada, China, and Mexico on US confectionery and sweet bakery and associated ingredient exports, imposed in response to America’s controversial steel and aluminium tariffs, break WTO rules.…

*Brazil has been told to reform tax breaks given to Brazil-based manufacturers of automobiles and information technology products. The World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) appellate body has ruled that they break WTO rules on giving special tax favours to domestic producers over importers.…

A BUDDY training system has been launched by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), enabling countries with significant regulatory capacity to help other states prepare for the upcoming CORSIA (Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation) scheme. ICAO has been training national officials to advise on ensuring CORSIA’s legal requirements are written into local laws and also on building the emissions data monitoring, reporting and verification systems they need to measure their airlines’ carbon footprint.…

A 2011 oil deal at the centre of a huge corporate fraud and corruption trial currently underway in a Milan court would see Nigeria lose nearly USD6 billion if it is not overturned, according to a report from Global Witness. Quoting claims made in the case, ‘Take the Future’ alleges that Italy’s partly state-owned Eni and Anglo-Dutch Shell knew that much of the USD1.1 billion they paid for a license to explore OPL 245 (oil prospecting licence) an offshore oil field in the Niger delta, ended up in the pockets government officials and did not end up in Nigerian state coffers, according to emails uncovered during the investigation.…

THE PERCEPTION of beauty and hence the design and supply of personal care products is slowly changing in sub-Saharan Africa as its increasingly wealthy middle class consumers take a more personalised approach to how they look. The region has a widely diversified consumer-base, whose varied tastes are pushing brands to rethink personalising cosmetics and personal care products like never before. …

As he took in the fourth Africa Sourcing and Fashion Week (ASFW) in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa last week, Kenneth K Han, managing director of Shints ETP Garment Plc, said he is optimistic over the country’s potential in the textile and apparel sector, despite many challenges.…

WITH an estimated USD1.5 trillion lost to the global economy because of bribes, the World Bank is pushing for a diverse array of technology to be deployed – it is a call being answered with anti-graft systems being installed worldwide.

Reducing corruption “is a priority” for the World Bank, it said in a briefing note in September 2017.…

The recent sight of a Chinese internet celebrity in a milking parlour in Limerick could be a hint of what the future holds for Ireland’s increasingly international dairy industry. Xiao Lu Yu, one of the ‘influencers’ who monetise Chinese social media (see https://m.weibo.cn/status/4279583182420503…

TIME was when dairy farming in Ireland was a family affair, with smallholdings and local dairies predominant. But those days are long gone. The Irish dairy sector is now big business, not just on Republic of Ireland’s 4.8 million population, but also overseas, with big brands targeting foreign markets.…

Southwark Crown Court, London, found two former top executives of collapsed oil firm Afren guilty of fraud and money laundering in their handling of a USD300 million oil deal. In the October 24 ruling on a case brought by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the court found former chief executive and operating officers, Osman Shahenshah and Shahid Ullah guilty of fraud by deceiving the Afren Board into agreeing the USD300 million business deal, from which they personally received more than USD17 million.…

A SALES and Services Tax (SST), replacing Malaysia’s now abolished goods and services tax (GST), has come into force (from September 1), via the new Sales Tax Act 2018 and the Service Tax Act 2018. The SST is a single-stage tax, a sales and services tax imposed on manufacturers and service providers rather than end customers, as with the 6% GST.…

SOLAR energy in Africa ought to be a no brainer. The continent has lot of sun, and weak electricity supplies, especially in the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa. And yet, climate finance that has developed since the Paris climate change agreement of 2015, that could help grow green energy in this sunny continent, has not focused on Africa.…

A SALES and Services Tax (SST), replacing Malaysia’s now abolished goods and services tax (GST), has come into force (from September 1), via the new Sales Tax Act 2018 and the Service Tax Act 2018. The SST is a single-stage tax, a sales and services tax imposed on manufacturers and service providers rather than end customers, as with the 6% GST.…

Paul Simmons, Chief Financial Officer, Marriott International Middle East and Africa, provides a glimpse into running the finances of the region’s largest international hotel operator.

The Middle East – particularly the countries of the Arabian Gulf – is known for its impressive skyline of luxury hotels.…

The Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the five pillars of Islam, a religious duty every Muslim should perform once in their lifetime. But with 1.7 billion Muslims worldwide and the Hajj only occurring over five days every year, the event is a logistical challenge for the Saudi Arabian government, tour operators, hospitality service providers, retailers and accountants.…

Enhancing the quality of passenger experience while maintaining maximum security was a recurring theme during the Dubai Airport Show 2018. The annual airport industry event, held from May 7 to 9, drew more than 7,500 visitors.

Covering 15,000 square metres of space across three halls of the iconic Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre, its 18^th edition hosted more than 350 exhibitors from 60 countries.…

THE NIGERIAN drinks industry and trade unions have expressed opposition to planned increases in excise duty on alcohol, which will rise on June 4, with two additional planned increases in 2019 and 2020. Duties are currently low – while they are at a flat rate of 20%, this can be (and is) reduced by manufacturers claiming input costs against what they charge on their products.…

CORRUPTION saps economic competition that drives productivity improvements and grows emerging market economies – this is a key reason behind the establishment of the Commonwealth Africa Anti-Corruption Centre (CAACC). Another is the established link between the perception of risk from corrupt practices in a country and foreign economic investment.…

*A newly approved European Union (EU) directive on transparency requirements for tax intermediaries will insist that accountants designing or promoting aggressive tax planning schemes report them to national tax authorities. The requirements, approved by the EU Council of Ministers, apply from July 1, 2020, and member states will have to fine intermediaries, including lawyers and bankers, that fail to report.…

THE NONWOVENS market in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) is increasingly important to the global nonwovens industry, with rising consumer demand being generated by middle classes that are growing in size. Countries in the region are also comparatively young, with high birth rates, boosting demand for diapers and wipes.…

DEFERRED Prosecution Agreements (DPAs), that allow companies and individuals that admit to wrongdoing and cooperate with investigators to pay a fine and avoid prosecution, are becoming increasingly common worldwide. Enabling wrongdoers to avoid being debarred from bidding for many contracts and providing law enforcers with a commitment that companies and individual fraudsters will avoid fraud in future, DPAs offer benefits for police and suspects.…

*The European Union (EU) Council of Ministers has published a blacklist of jurisdictions it thinks do not cooperate sufficiently with international efforts to reduce tax evasion. They are American Samoa, Bahrain, Barbados, Grenada, Guam, South Korea, Macau, the Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Namibia, Palau, Panama, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers finally committed, on December 18, (2017), to a target of reaching at least 27% renewable energy out of overall energy consumption by 2030. While lower than the 45% or 30% demanded by green groups and the European Commission respectively, the biofuels industry has declared that its output should be instrumental in meeting this goal.…

SUB-SAHARAN Africa continues to grow as a key market for personal care product brands, with enlarging middle classes providing more spending power – however, the region’s most mature market – South Africa – has been experiencing some stagnation.

The rest of the region still is performing as emerging markets should – with growing sales, even when uneven across categories, giving brands much hope for the future.…

African clothing exporting countries are banking on rising costs in China and changing consumption patterns worldwide to attract buyers to the continent to take advantage of lower production costs.

Major hurdles abound, but manufacturers are hopeful that clothing facilities built from scratch that abide by international best practices will help the continent’s apparel sector develop.…

Despite the negative impact of the economic recession of 2016 in Nigeria (when the GDP of Africa’s largest economy fell 1.5%), colour cosmetics remained a vibrant consumer sales category. It has been and will be powered by a growing population of urbanised and fashion-conscious women interested in upgrading, maintaining and experimenting with their facial appearance.…

COMMERCIAL motivation coupled with a desire to make a difference in people’s lives is driving a new wave of social entrepreneurs in Singapore.

While social enterprise start-ups in Asia have traditionally been non-profit non-government organisations (NGOs), the new trend is for tech-savvy millennials to launch innovative and profitable, but also socially-inclusive projects.…

SOUTH AFRICA MULLS REMOVING OVERSEAS WORK TAX EXEMPTION

The South African National Treasury and the South African Revenue Service (SARS) have proposed a 2017 Draft Tax Administration Laws Amendment Bill that would remove a tax exemption for South African residents working overseas for more than 183 days (at least 60 days continuously).…

HONG KONG and Saudi Arabia has struck an agreement on avoiding double taxation so any Saudi Arabian tax paid by Hong Kong companies will be credited against tax payable on the same profits in the special administrative region. The same would apply to Saudi companies paying tax in Hong Kong.…

CONFECTIONARY manufacturers in India are having to grapple with their products and ingredients attracting a wide range of tax rates under the country’s new goods and services tax (GST), which started to be levied from July 1.

India’s GST Council, a body representing the central and state governments, has been deciding which goods will be covered by the zero, 5%, 12%, 18% and 28% tax rates allowed under India’s GST legislation. …

A SURVEY by the Nigerian government has shown how ubiquitous corruption is within Africa’s largest economy, with figures revealing that 95% of Nigerians are prepared to accept or offer a bribe. This is according to an August 17 report by Nigeria’s National Bureau for Statistics (NBS).…

Chinese multinational company Shandong Ruyi Technology Group Co has confirmed it is considering investing USD600 million into textile and garment manufacturing plants in the northern Nigeria city, Kano. Talks between the Kano State Investment Promotion Agency and officials of the company have reached an advanced stage with a memorandum of understanding expected be signed in the next few months, said a note from the agency.…

A PROPOSAL to cut funding for the Fogarty International Center from the upcoming USA federal government budget by President Donald Trump’s administration has prompted an outcry from academics and educators across Africa.

For decades Fogarty, part of the USA National Institutes of Health (NIH), has been instrumental in developing medical teaching and research capacity on the continent.…

THE EVER-intensifying skyline of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, illustrates the rapid economic growth of this equatorial East African country, and its growing workforce is increasingly keen to buy deodorants to keep them dry and comfortable in the office and outside.

An increased focus on banking, industry, manufacturing and construction have raised the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 5.3% year-on-year in 2014 and 5.6% in 2015 (Deloitte Economic Outlook 2016).…

A GROWING population of professional young men is behind an increase in sales of deodorants to consumers wanting to combat the heat of Nigeria.

With wide supermarket availability of these personal care products a relatively new phenomenon in Nigeria, consumers can regard deodorants as trendy and a symbol that they are in touch with global trends Driven by a desire to appear trendy and follow western media influence, London-based market research company Euromonitor International has revealed.…

GLOBAL knitwear outsourcing centre Bangladesh is expected to soon ratify the emerging market D-8 PTA preferential trade agreement, newspaper reports in Dhaka say, indicating the government may have loosened demands over rules of origin. Bangladesh has been pushing for its manufacturers to gain privileged access to D-8 markets (Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Turkey, as well as Egypt if it also ultimately ratifies), if 30% of value in a product is created within Bangladesh.…

Demand is growing for a major international programme designed to support developing countries build up their tax audit capacity and – critically – the funding is there to meet that need. Launched as a joint initiative of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in July 2015 after an initial pilot phase, Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) sees tax experts work side-by-side with local officials in developing and emerging markets.…

WITH the economies of sub-Saharan Africa emerging from past poverty, informality and occasional chaos, the regularisation of the region’s public sector accounts is increasingly viewed as an important way of ensuring growing tax revenues are spent wisely.

As a result, accounting experts have been encouraged by growing moves to adopt International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS).…

MOROCCO is becoming an increasingly attractive destination for African students seeking to study abroad, and is now their second most popular destination on the continent, following South Africa. According to the latest statistics published by Morocco’s ministry of higher education, training and research, more than 18,000 African foreign students are currently enrolled in higher institutions in Morocco.…

THE MIDDLE East and Africa is certainly a promising regional market for nonwovens manufacturers, given the high level of economic growth in many countries and the rise of consumer-culture focused middle classes. But companies need to be sophisticated in their investment and sales tactics given the immense variety of economic and social fortunes experienced by countries in this most diverse region.…

GLOBAL knitwear outsourcing centre Bangladesh is expected to soon ratify the emerging market D-8 PTA preferential trade agreement, newspaper reports in Dhaka say, indicating the government may have loosened demands over rules of origin. Bangladesh has been pushing for its manufacturers to gain privileged access to D-8 markets (Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Turkey, as well as Egypt if it also ultimately ratifies), if 30% of value in a product is created within Bangladesh.…

The textile and clothing sector is at the heart of efforts by the Nigerian government to diversify and restore the country’s energy-oriented economy, creating opportunities for textile firms interested in setting up operations in the country. Government proactivity in the sector is rooted in the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) – which has been implemented since July 2016 and its Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), which was released this March by the government.…

KENYA’S EDUCATION MINISTER CALLS FOR LESS GOVERNMENT MEDDLING IN AFRICAN UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT

Kenya’s education minister has called for African governments to pull away from direct management of their country’s universities, saying such meddling is unnecessary and can hinder the development of effective management.…

With the value of Bitcoin skyrocketing over the past year, up from USD525 per Bitcoin last August to USD1,200 in mid-April, with one unit now being able to buy an ounce of gold, finding ways to efficiently regulate decentralised and independent virtual currencies (VCs) has become a top priority among governments and regulators worldwide.…

Ethiopia attracted foreign investments of USD1.2 billion in the first six months of the 2016/17 fiscal year, despite this increasingly important manufacturing base being under a state of emergency due to widespread anti-government protests. The figures come from the Ethiopian Investment Commission, which says that these financial injections investments were dominated by major Chinese companies, half of which are licensed in textile and garment manufacturing.…

MEPS CHANGE EU SHAREHOLDER RIGHTS LAW

Reforms to the European Union (EU) shareholders’ rights directive (2007/36/EC) have been approved by the European Parliament. Key changes, that are expected to be formally approved by the EU Council of Ministers, include that institutional investors and asset managers declare how they invest in a company and work with their executives.…

THE ANCIENT Celts has a saying: “To the brave belong all things.” And in business, this remains true. Companies prepared to take big risks, can reap big spoils. But they can also stumble into disaster. Such calculations are always made when foreign companies consider trading or investing in so-called ‘failed states’ or those at risk of failure.…

KENYA has long been regarded as east Africa’s economic powerhouse, with residential and industrial construction boosting sales of paints and coatings – and for now there seems to be no halt in this progress. Indeed, the last World Bank assessment of growth in this 45 million people country was that GDP rose by 5.6% in 2015.…

THE FEDERAL Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has confirmed to Jane’s Airport Review that Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport will be closed for six weeks while construction crews repair its pitted and potholed runway.

The closure – which was scheduled to begin on March 8 – will cause flights to be diverted to Kaduna Airport, which is 250km away from the Nigerian capital, and where construction work on a second terminal is still underway.…

THE MODERATION of growth across sub-Saharan Africa last year to 1.5%, (according to the World Bank), from an average 5-7% per annum in the previous 10 years, may signal that the region needs to firm up its financial professions and institutions to help preserve its recent economic gains.…

A JUDGE yesterday (January 17) approved Britain’s largest ever commercial crime enforcement action – a GBP497.25 million (USD616 million) plus interest and GBP13 million costs (USD16.1 million) deferred prosecution agreement with the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Sir Brian Leveson, President of the Queen’s Bench division, agreed the penalty for Rolls-Royce, covering covers 12 counts of conspiracy to corrupt, false accounting and failure to prevent bribery.…

NIGERIAN men are often pragmatic consumers who focus on essentials when buying grooming products, and indeed sales of daily staples such as toiletry, shaving and fragrance products have been growing phenomenally in west Africa’s economic powerhouse.

But personal care product companies should not ignore non-essential grooming products for men in Nigeria – it may be a niche, but market experts have told Cosmetics Business Markets that the potential of these sales should not be underestimated.…

SWITZERLAND may have lost its reputation as a haven for dirty money deposited in numbered accounts with no questions asked, but global anti-money laundering (AML) body the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) wants more vigilance and proactivity in Swiss AML policies and actions.…

SUB-Saharan Africa offers the personal care product a real chance to see solid and steep growth in sales in upcoming years, with the region’s middle class growing in size and prosperity, served by international brands boosting their retail presence, especially in larger urban markets.…

IVORY Coast has imported more than double the value of cosmetic products in 2015 when compared with 2009, from the European Union (EU) alone, signaling the creation of a booming domestic beauty market as the country emerges from a civil war that ended in 2011.…

AFRICA’S economic growth means it does not just have more banks than before, banking groups are spreading across national borders. And while this can boost banks’ lending and savings security, it also complicates the job of regulators charged with ensuring such institutions are honest and solvent.…

The UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has refused to deny claims that it is extending a criminal investigation into allegations of bribery and corruption at luxury car and aeronautical engine maker Rolls-Royce by examining fresh allegations of wrong-doing in Nigeria. The SFO probe was launched in December 2013 to look into possible bribery and corruption by the company’s aerospace division in China and Indonesia, and the investigation was already extended at last December to take in Rolls-Royce activities in Brazil.…

Nigeria is to build a new Aerospace University, it has been announced.

The news broke as the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Council president Dr Olumuyiwa Bernard Aliu visited the African state last month.

In addition, the Nigerian College of Aviation is to be upgraded to full status as an ICAO regional training centre, it was announced following meetings with Mr Aliu and Nigeria’s President  Muhammudu Buhari.…

A MEETING of the European Parliament’s special committee on tax rulings has grilled multinationals over European Union (EU) member state tax rulings. The European Commission fears they have been abused by governments giving companies low tax rates in return for registering businesses in their jurisdictions.…

China pharmaceutical industry investors want to help sub-Saharan African countries meet growing domestic demand for medicine in return for tax breaks and private-public partnership initiatives. But there are difficulties – including product quality and standards issues that impede the flow of Chinese Yuan into African pharma production.…

THE GLOBAL paint and coatings sector is looking closely at sub-Saharan Africa as an emerging market, which attracted USD56.3 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2014. And as the region’s richest and most diversified economy, the United Nations Conference on Trade & Development (UNCTAD) has noted, South Africa was Africa’s leading FDI recipient in 2013, with a figure that had more than doubled year-on-year to top USD10 billion.…

THE INDONESIAN textile industry is being put under pressure to boost its environmental performance by international non-governmental organisation (NGO) Greenpeace, which has accused sector of poisoning a major river in West Java.
WTiN.com visited elderly residents in Majalaya, a small town by the Citarum River, who say it was once clean enough to wash in.…

While many economies in Africa are growing fast, there is a consensus amongst accountants that the continent has to build its business reporting and administration to make sure this growth is sustainable. Indeed, the third African Congress of Accountants (ACOA), staged in Port Louis, Mauritius, from May 11 to 14, heard that this essential work is needed now, even as some countries remain marred by severe socio-political unrest, economic instability, poverty, famine and disease.…

TO discover the best intelligence on money laundering, sometimes it is best just to ask the money launderers. Take China. There are numerous ways of getting dirty money out of China. The most common include smuggling a satchel of banknotes to Hong Kong (where Chinese Yuan Renminbi (CNY) is convertible), where it is washed through an over-priced (for quick transaction) purchase of real estate in the city, several Hong Kong real estate agents told the Money Laundering Bulletin.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission may block or impose conditions on a planned acquisition by US-based Cargill of the industrial chocolate business of its American rival Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). The European Union (EU) executive’s directorate general for competition has opened an in-depth investigation into the deal, to assess whether it could damage the availability of reasonably priced supplies of this key confectionery input.…

Kenya is the third largest market for industrial paints and coatings in sub-Saharan Africa, ranking behind South Africa and Nigeria, according to regional analysis conducted by market researchers Frost & Sullivan.
According to their report, released last May (2014), the three countries are projected to have a joint market volume of over 140 million litres for industrial paints and coatings by 2017.…

Nigeria maybe troubled politically, but it remains a potentially lucrative market for industrial paints and coatings manufacturers. As with Kenya and South Africa, the country is undergoing rapid infrastructure developments creating demand for paints and coatings.
As this is oil-rich Nigeria, the focus of this action remains its fossil fuel pipelines, floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels, offshore platforms, buoys, tanks, and refineries: “New projects announced in the oil and gas sector and allied industries in Nigeria are fuelling the demand for industrial paints and coatings products,” said Frost & Sullivan’s chemicals, materials & food industry analyst, Anthony Lawrence, in analysis released last year.…

Africa is emerging as a viable, even strong, sourcing alternative to Asia, but Africa still needs to learn significant lessons from its rival on establishing a strong sourcing hub, say industry experts.

For instance, sub-Saharan suppliers should note how Asia’s garment and textile industry is well-coordinated and integrated regionally, with strong inter-country links.…

The emergence of synthetic fuels continues to raise hopes that low-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels will be developed, offering the prospect of long-term sustainable production. And with synthetic liquid fuel and synthetic gas chemical composition reflecting fossil fuels’ conversion of hydrogen and atmospheric CO2 into methane, experts are openly enthused about their avoidance of intermittency associated with renewable energy.…

INDIA’S Godrej Consumer Products Ltd has acquired another hair care business in Africa, buying a 100% equity stake in South African hair extensions specialist Frika Hair (Pty) Ltd.

According to a Godrej communiqué, Frika has a strong wholesale distribution capacity for it hair extension products that include braids, synthetic weaves, human hair weaves, wigs and hair-pieces.…

Turkey’s rapidly growing nonwovens industry is a rising star that everyone should be paying attention to. This was the general consensus at the second Turkish Nonwovens Symposium in Istanbul on November 10-11, held by EDANA, the leading global association of nonwovens and related industries.…

Increasing efforts are being made across the cocoa supply chain in globally important producer Ghana to ensure its industry operates ethically and sustainably. Total Ghanaian cocoa production for the 2013/14 season was forecast to be around 830,000 tonnes, according to a report by the Oxford Business Group, which noted that 835,000 tonnes of cocoa were harvested in Ghana during the 2012/13 season, representing around 21% of the global total.…

Tax evasion drained a record USD991.2 billion in illicit financial flows from developing economies in 2012 – facilitating crime and corruption, according to a new study by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington DC-based research and advisory organization. “To put this in perspective, the cumulative total of official development assistance to the developing countries in this report… was just USD809 billion,” said a GFI note.…

One of the biggest expanding markets for cosmetics and personal care products is sub-Saharan Africa. A key exporter to the region, L’Oréal has estimated that the overall African beauty and personal care market generated EUR6.93 billion (USD8.61 billion) in 2012, growing at between 8% and 10% annually, compared to a global market growth rate near 4%.…

Soap and personal care manufacturers worldwide have responded to the Ebola epidemic with donations of their products to directly affected regions.     Their goal especially has been to promote cleanliness as a means of limiting the spread of the disease. For instance, the USA’s Avadim Technologies has donated its advanced Theraworx sanitation products to Liberia, in partnership with Eblen Charities, for instance.…

GHANA continues to be recognised as one of Africa’s success stories. The country remains relatively peaceful and stable, and its economy has grown at an annual average of around 6% over the past six years. As a result, it is maybe not a surprise that Ghana was ranked healthily at 5.88 (10 being the worst score) in the 2014 Basel Anti-Money Laundering index, among the lowest in west Africa, only bettered by established democracy Senegal, with 5.43.…

THE EUROPEAN pharmaceutical industry’s fast-track approach to investing in the Ebola virus disease (EVD) has been welcomed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), as progress in fighting the disease in west Africa starts being made. Speaking to members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in Brussels on Wednesday (Nov 5), the WHO regional director for Europe Zsuzsanna Jakab said that although in the past, EVD was considered a disease of poverty and therefore commercial interests and benefits were unclear, today that attitude had changed.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced it will pay an additional EUR3 million to the Airport Communication Project (AIRCOP), financing its work to 2016. AIRCOP is run by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the World Customs Organisation (WCO) and Interpol, and aims to strengthen anti-narcotic detection, interdiction and intelligence capacities in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. …

West African airports have imposed comprehensive health checks on passengers to fight the spread of the Ebola virus. In the region’s most populous country Nigeria, widespread passenger medical screening is under way, using screening, protection, detection and healthcare equipment, some donated by the USA government and Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

Chinese construction firms have cornered plenty of business in Africa and Latin America, but they need upskilling to consolidate their position. Anyone who observes the queues of nervous young men lining up in the early morning in Beijing’s tree-lined Sanlitun diplomatic district will be in no doubt of the intensity of Chinese activity in Africa and Latin America.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) oil refining industry is looking at September as the time when the European Commission may propose a new way to implement the bloc’s fuel quality directive (FQD). This would break a deadlock of almost three years, with Brussels tabling its last proposed technical rules on how the 2009 law should work in October 2011.…

The cogeneration market in Turkey is in flux. Overall combined heat and power (CHP) capacity has dropped over the past decade from 15% of total energy capacity in 2004, to 14% in 2013, primarily due to high oil and gas prices in the wake of market liberalisation that made CHP less cost effective.…

For nurses coming to work in Britain from overseas, a key requirement is always going to be proficiency in English. A Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) spokesperson noted that under European legislation the NMC “is not allowed to ask EU [European Union]-trained EU nationals to demonstrate language competency as a requirement for registration in the UK.”…

THE MIDDLE East cosmetics market is weathering the region’s current political and economic instability in the region. While the markets in the Levant are experiencing tough times, Gulf sales continue to grow. Retailers and manufacturers are also offsetting the losses incurred in depressed and unstable countries by exporting to burgeoning African markets.…

THE UNITED States’ Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is to go into force on July 1. Aimed at curbing tax evasion by US citizens around the world, foreign financial institutions (FFIs) are required to report on US account holders, but over 200,000 FFIs and 123 countries have not yet signed up.…

The poor health and welfare reputation of Nigeria’s abattoirs and meat processors has undermined the reputation of its meat sector, helping reduce exports to a derisory level.

It is a problem, because livestock accounts for one-third of Nigeria’s agricultural GDP, providing income, employment, food, farm energy, manure, fuel and transport.…

Nigeria’s minister of mines and steel has told Steel First that his government intends to push ahead with its policy of developing comprehensive backward integration for the country’s iron and steel sectors.

The plan had been unveiled on January 23 by mines and steel minister Architect Musa Mohammed Sada, with Nigeria’s industry minister, at a forum in Lagos on the ‘transformation of minerals, iron and steel sub-sector for industrial revolution in Nigeria.’…

Coca Cola Nigeria Limited and its bottling partner the Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) have rebuffed claims from a consumer agency that they have produced Sprite that is potentially harmful to consumers. Speaking to just-drinks, Mrs Adeyanju Olomola, head of public affairs and communications for NBC said both companies always complied with the country’s laws and regulatory requirements.…

AFTER six years of financing some of the largest infrastructure projects across Africa, a groundbreaking multilateral development institution – the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) – has attained its investment grade international credit rating. Moody’s Investors Service assigned the corporation an A3 (long term) /P2 (short term) foreign currency debt rating, making the AFC, headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria the second highest investment grade rated financial institution based on the African continent, following the long-established Africa Development Bank (ADB).…

ALTHOUGH two-thirds of vaccine research and development (R&D) globally is carried out by European firms, manufacturers in China, India and Brazil are becoming increasingly muscular and “moving from dependency to self-sufficiency” experts at a two-day conference in Brussels on vaccine research heard last week.…

TURKEY’S paints and coatings industry has set itself the target of becoming the third largest paints and coatings sector in Europe by 2023 as it seeks to become a key regional hub within the international industry as a whole.

According to data from Turkey’s Association of Paint Industry (Boya Sanayicileri Dernegi – BOSAD), the size of the Turkish paints and coatings market reached 840,000 tonnes in 2012, with a value of USD2 billion.…

IT is a curious irony that for an industry as technical as cogeneration that maybe the biggest handicap to its sustained growth in Europe is actually emotional. Both commercial markets and governments are swayed by sentiment as well as hard cash – and currently both influences are failing to pull in co-gen’s favour.…

IT is a curious irony that for an industry as technical as cogeneration that maybe the biggest handicap to its sustained growth in Europe is actually emotional. Both commercial markets and governments are swayed by sentiment as well as hard cash – and currently both influences are failing to pull in co-gen’s favour.…

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.…

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.…

*Gazprom International is one of the world’s largest energy companies, handling oil and gas geological exploration, production, transportation and storage; processing and selling oil, gas and oil and gas-based liquid fuels; while providing heat and electric power services.
*The state-owned company holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves: 18% and 72% of global and Russian reserves respectively.…

ISLAMIC banks are big business in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, but not thus far in sub-Saharan Africa. The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), however, recently took a USD5 million, 15% equity stake in Kenya’s Gulf African Bank (GAB) to support corporate finance and lending to small and medium businesses – its first in the sub-Saharan Islamic bank sector.…

The vice-chancellor of Cameroon’s English-speaking University of Buea (UB) has declared she is determined to soothe tensions on her campus which have led to a series of violent strikes by students. Buea is one of two public English-speaking universities in majority-Francophone Cameroon.…

BIOMETRICS technologies producing voice and phone ‘fingerprints’ to prevent, detect and prosecute fraud and other crimes are evolving rapidly in an arms race between fraudsters, law enforcement, private companies and private sector anti-fraud companies.

For forensics, many jurisdictions admit voice biometrics in evidence.…

Although proper accounting is important for developing and emerging economies – for instance, informational transparency decreases transactional costs – obstacles remain, said Evgeny Buben, Gazprom Nigeria’s CFO: “There’s a lack of political will to start the process of harmonisation and control implementation; a lack of  professionals capable of performing proper implementation; resistance from local accounting bodies and other local influential groups; resistance of local accountants and auditors to changes.”…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) heads of states and governments have urged their ministers to agree important pieces of draft EU legislation that could potentially curb tax evasion in the bloc.

Meeting during a European Council meeting in Brussels last week (May 22), leaders were under pressure to act from media reports revealing how much untaxed incomes politicians, companies and rich business owners have stashed in tax havens.…

EXPERTS representing accounting bodies from around the world urged accountants in Africa to help reduce corruption and mismanagement in their governments through effective bookkeeping and auditing, as the continent moves towards sustainable growth. The 2^nd Africa Congress of Accountants (ACOA) gathered in Accra, the capital of Ghana, from May 14-16.…

AFTER years of promises, the Ghanaian government, with some help from Brazil, is ready to make good on its pledge to equip Ghana with a second international airport. Construction under the government’s USD174 million plan to upgrade Tamale Airport, in northern Ghana, to enable it to better handle the international traffic for which it was designated in 2008, should begin this summer, according to Bernard Nyavor, the passengers director of Ghana’s Kotoka International Airport (KIA), in the capital Accra.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) confectionery manufacturers and their suppliers stand to boost their export sales and reduce import costs with the launch of talks to forge the two largest bilateral trade deals ever sought by the EU – with the USA and Japan.…

ETHIOPIA’S potential as a source of industrial minerals is beginning to be realised, with a growing number of exploration and mining projects underway, and rapidly increasing foreign investment.
To date, its Ministry of Mines has granted 72 industrial minerals exploration licenses – 61 to foreign companies, eight to Ethiopian/foreign joint ventures, and three to local companies; and 52 mining licenses – 28 to foreign companies, 17 to Ethiopian/foreign joint ventures, and seven to local companies.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

Counterfeit, mislabelled and substandard meat products have been seized in an international police operation spanning 29 countries, coordinated by Interpol and European police agency Europol. Sausages, ham, lamb, chicken and beef were seized, a Europol spokesman told globalmeatnews.com.…

BY ANDREW GREEN, IN KAMPALA; AND BILLCORCORAN, IN CAPE TOWN

THE TRIPLING in the size of Africa’s middle class over the last 30 years to what the African Development Bank estimates is now 313 million people coupled with increased urbanisation, are driving the growth of the continent’s cosmetics industry and markets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Customs Organisation (WCO) has launched a crack-down on illicit medicines in 16 African countries, which sparked the seizure of more than 82 million doses of illegal pharmaceuticals. The haul included antimalarial and anti-parasitic drugs, antibiotics, cough syrups, contraceptive pills and infertility treatments, worth more than USD40 million.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Customs Organisation (WCO) has launched a crack-down on fraudulent medicines in 16 African countries, seizing more than 82 million doses of illegal pharmaceuticals worth more than USD40 million. A WCO note said: "These results are alarming…" Its officers worked with the Institute of Research against Counterfeit Medicines (IRACM) and 16 national customs administrations in raids called VICE GRIPS 2, targeting seaport containers in Angola, Benin, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Congo (Brazzaville), Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania and Togo.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

FOR multinational businesses, comprehensive and precise financial reporting is critical for a company’s success, and such good practice is also essential for companies striving for profits within emerging markets.

Earlier this year, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) released a report ‘Being the Change: Inspiring the Next Generation of Inclusive Business Entrepreneurs Impacting the Base of the Pyramid’, which highlights the IFC’s ‘inclusive business models’ strategy.…

BY WACHIRA KIGOTHI, IN NAIROBI, AND WANG FANGQING, IN SHANGHAI

China’s powerful clothing and textile industry is looking for continued growth in sub-Saharan Africa, whose local manufacturers and brands are worrying about how to deal with the competition.

According to William Gumede, a senior research fellow at the University of Witwatersrand’s school of public and development management in South Africa, Chinese domination of Africa’s textile markets and its industry has promoted significant job losses.…

BY DAVID HAYHURST, IN PARIS

THREE years ago, the Group of Twenty (G20) finance ministers and central bank governors stated the organisation’s intention was to "rationalise and phase out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption".…

IT is a curious irony that for an industry as technical as cogeneration that maybe the biggest handicap to its sustained growth in Europe is actually emotional. Both commercial markets and governments are swayed by sentiment as well as hard cash – and currently both influences are failing to pull in co-gen’s favour.…

BY MONIKA HANLEY, IN RIGA; ALICE TRUDELLE, IN WARSAW; CARMEN PAUN, IN BRUSSELS; EUGENE VOROTNIKOV, IN ST PETERSBURG; ROBERT STOKES, IN MALAGA; GERARD O’DWYER, IN HELSINKI; LEE ADENDOORF, IN LUCCA; ALAN OSBORN; MJ DESCHAMPS; AND KEITH NUTHALL

IT is a curious irony that for an industry as technical as cogeneration that maybe the biggest handicap to its sustained growth in Europe is actually emotional.…

BY MONIKA HANLEY, IN RIGA; ALICE TRUDELLE, IN WARSAW; CARMEN PAUN, IN BRUSSELS; EUGENE VOROTNIKOV, IN ST PETERSBURG; ROBERT STOKES, IN MALAGA; GERARD O’DWYER, IN HELSINKI; LEE ADENDOORF, IN LUCCA; ALAN OSBORN; MJ DESCHAMPS; AND KEITH NUTHALL

Such small plants have clear commercial applications and it could be – going forward – that market-based innovation, rather than government support, that will succour the sector in much of Europe during the ongoing financial and economic crisis.…

BY VILLEN ANGANAN, IN BEAU-BASSIN, MAURITIUS

INTERNATIONAL accounting firms are exploring opportunities within Africa, and are using the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius – a regional financial centre – as a stepping stone. All the Big Four: Ernst &Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), KPMG and Deloitte are already successfully offering their services to African clients.…

BY GEORGE STONE, IN CAPE TOWN

It is part of the accountancy profession’s faith that good honest financial reporting and dealings can promote economic growth because of the commercial trust that it engenders. And maybe nowhere can the case be made more strongly than in Africa.…

BY GEORGE STONE, IN CAPE TOWN

SUSTAINABLE growth in Africa outside South Africa faces the challenges of strong population growth, commodity price volatility, climate change and food insecurity. The continent’s current population of 1 billion people is forecast to almost double by 2050.…

DESPITE the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last May, Al Qaeda and its affiliated groups remain a global money laundering and terrorist financing concern. Yet a decade on from the September 11 attacks, counterterrorism specialists say there has been too much focus on Al Qaeda itself (it means The Base in Arabic) but not enough on associated and other militant groups that pose significant threats.…

BY WANG FANGQING IN SHANGHAI

A RECENT Chinese-African cotton agreement could usher in a new era for the African cotton industry but not in the short-term, say industry experts.

Under the agreement, signed in December with four key cotton-producing African countries – Benin, Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso (known as the C4) – China stated it would provide machinery, expertise and materials in a bid to increase and improve the quality of local production.…

BY GEORGE STONE

MOZAMBIQUE expects to start exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) in 2018 after major gas finds by Milan-based Eni and American firm Anadarko Petroleum in the waters of the Rovuma basin in the north of the country. The finds mean Mozambique is on course to be a leading LNG supplier to Asia, particularly Japan and rival the region’s leading gas exporters Nigeria and Angola.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A WORLD Bank report has called for the deepening of political reforms in Nigeria to generate more general wealth from its oil reserves. Highlighting how a despotic government acting as an oil firm landlord had concentrated revenues, it said democracy and proposed "reforms for the petroleum sector hold much promise".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE UNITED Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is claiming restoring Nigeria’s Ogoniland oil region to ecological health could be the world’s most wide-ranging and long-term oil clean-up. A Shell-funded UNEP assessment says cleansing contaminated drinking water, land, creeks and other ecosystems could take 25 to 30 years, costing USD1 billion for the first five years.…

BY BILL CORCORAN, WACHIRA KIGOTHO, PAUL COCHRANE; and KEITH NUTHALL

SUB-SAHARAN Africa has always been regarded as a problem zone for air traffic control, with weak states struggling to provide the sophisticated and flexible communications required for state of the art ATC.…

BY LEAH GERMAIN and ALYSHAH HASHAM

THE SMALL West African country of Guinea Bissau has seen its share of bloody coups, and is known as a cocaine smuggling hub between Latin America and Europe. Continued lawlessness and corruption in the country helped forced the European Union (EU) to withdraw support from security sector reform in 2010.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

IN a drive to combat the illegal exploitation of conflict minerals and create greater transparency of money flows between mining companies and governments, the European Commission is to table a new European Union (EU) law this autumn. It will ask large mining companies to reveal detail about their mining activities and associated financial transactions to shareholders.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SUB-SAHARAN Africa might not be the obvious choice as the hub of a new thriving regional pharmaceutical industry, but the World Bank and a key African multi-national economic community think so. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) has launched a detailed strategy to foster medicine manufacture and World Bank managing director Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala thinks there is every chance the industry can grow south of the Sahara.…

BY GEORGE STONE

MOZAMBIQUE expects to start exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) in 2018 after major gas finds by Milan-based Eni and American firm Anadarko Petroleum in the waters of the Rovuma basin in the north of the country. The finds mean Mozambique is on course to be a leading LNG supplier to Asia, particularly Japan and rival the region’s leading gas exporters Nigeria and Angola.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

37.40

INTELLIGENCE advice teams are to be posted at international airports in seven west African countries, to boost the number and effectiveness of illicit drugs seizures at their terminals. This ‘Aircop’ initiative has been organised by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the World Customs Organisation (WCO) and Interpol.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

INTELLIGENCE advice teams are to be posted at international airports in seven west African countries, to boost the number and effectiveness of illicit drugs seizures at their terminals. This ‘Aircop’ initiative has been organised by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the World Customs Organisation (WCO) and Interpol.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A TRUST backed by Nigeria’s energy industry to take over long-term management of a ‘Fabrication Training Centre’, offering management and technical training to engineers, welders, and construction companies working on oil and gas projects. The centre had been set up for US dollars USD600,000 by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and backers from Norway and Nigeria.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE GERMAN government is giving Euro EUR1.2 million to a UN project expanding and upgrading small and medium-sized generic pharmaceutical manufacturers in Asia and Africa. It is run by the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and aims to spread medicine manufacture across a continent where production is mainly concentrated in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE GERMAN government is giving Euro EUR1.2 million to a UN project expanding and upgrading small and medium-sized generic pharmaceutical manufacturers in Asia and Africa. It is run by the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and aims to spread medicine manufacture across a continent where production is mainly concentrated in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.…

BY BARBARA BIERACH

WHILE the Reserve Bank of Australia has a licence to print cash, two subsidiaries wanted one too, it seems – only using international sales agents to bribe foreign public officials over banknote printing contracts. Barbara Bierach reports from Sydney.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MAJOR report on Africa from consultants McKinsey Global Institute has called on African oil exporting countries to boost growth through diversifying their economies. It said: "Africa’s oil and gas exporters have the highest GDP per capita but the least diversified economies."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE TOWN of Asbestos in French-speaking Québec, Canada – named after the mineral that underpins its economy – is waiting to see whether its provincial government will approve a Canadian dollar CAD58 million (US dollar USD56 million) loan enabling an underground mine to tap an immense deposit.…

BY GEORGE STONE

THE DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo (DRC) is moving towards giving permission to a consortium led by Irish independent Tullow Oil to develop oil and gas production on its side of Lake Albert, government officials have signalled. Kinshasa, DRC’s capital city, is currently a minnow in Africa’s oil producer’s league, pumping just 25,000 barrels per day (bpd) while the continent’s leading exporters Nigeria and Angola are hitting the 2 million bpd mark.…

BY BILL CORCORAN

LAST year, the former executive chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nuhu Ribadu, summed up why he thought the west African country’s efforts to curb corruption and money laundering has faltered in recent years. "When you fight corruption, it fights back," said Mr Ribadu in June, as he addressed the United States government’s House of Representatives committee on financial services on capital loss and corruption in Nigeria, as well as in Africa.…

BY GEORGE STONE

THE KYOTO Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has made slow progress in Africa, but schemes are slowly getting off the ground, led by programmes in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa.

Under the United Nations-backed CDM process, projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to sustainable development can earn saleable certified emission reduction (CER) credits.…

BY EMMA JACKSON, KEITH NUTHALL, ALAN OSBORN, PAUL COCHRANE and BILL CORCORAN

WEST Africa is becoming a key region in the booming trade of illicit cigarettes, counterfeit copies of premium brands and smuggled properly branded and manufactured sticks. So much money is being made by criminals using this often-chaotic region as a hub to receive illicit sticks and then distribute them throughout Africa that this trade is becoming a matter of serious concern to the United Nations and even NATO.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IF a global poll was taken to identify the best known international organisation, the Egmont Group would be lucky to get a mention, despite it linking 116 financial intelligence units (FIU) worldwide.

It is partly to raise profile that the group last June appointed its first chair, Luis Urrutia, who heads Mexico’s FIU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SIGNIFICANT environmental improvements in Russia and Nigeria have been largely responsible for cutting global gas flaring over the past three years by 22 billion cubic metres (bcm), despite a 5% rise in crude oil production. The World Bank-led Global Gas Flaring Reduction partnership (GGFR) says flaring peaked at 162 bcm in 2005 and declined to 140 bcm in 2008.…

BY GEORGE STONE

GHANA, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are Africa’s latest upstream hotspots as major energy firms seek new provinces outside of regional heavyweight oil producers Nigeria and Angola. But jockeying for position has already led to friction between governments and the industry.…

BY MAKKI MARSEILLES

TOBACCO manufacturing in Greece is alive and well and the industry is looking forward to a very fine future. A ban on smoking in public places introduced this April 1 has had very little effect so far and a reported 6% drop in sales alleged by some retailers has not been substantiated, stressed the Association of Greek Tobacco Industries.…

By Leah Germain, International News Services

Globalisation has created new opportunities for the transfer of people and products across borders, and broadened the scope of many businesses around the world. But it’s not all good news of course: one of the seamier sides of growing international commerce is the abduction and trafficking of human beings. 

The problem is getting worse. Just over a year since the collapse of the global market, countries around the world have reported a significant increase in cases of the exploitation of people for monetary gain. While cases of kidnapping and ransom continue to be common in African and Latin American countries, such as Nigeria and Venezuela, the majority of organized human trafficking cases are actually in Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THERE were more pirate attacks from January to June of this year on crude oil tankers worldwide than in the same period of any year since 2004, the latest report from the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has shown.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE GLOBAL body helping to fight maritime pirates has advised the paint and coatings industry to look hard at their supply routes and prepare contingency plans in case cargoes sail close to global piracy hotspots. At present, two problem areas stand out: off Somalia, in and out of the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea; and to a lesser extent off western Africa, especially near the Niger Delta.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MOST people use a post office, so they are an ideal outlet for spreading important public health messages such as about avoiding HIV. As a result, the Universal Postal Union (UPU), UNAIDS, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the UNI Global Union trade union federation are launching a global awareness campaign using post office.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

NIGERIA should divert foreign direct investment from its oil sector and into manufacturing and food processing, the UN Conference on Trade and Development has argued. A policy review says oil investment has not "had a major impact on economic diversification, technological innovation, employment, and poverty reduction."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AFRICA’S economy has been weakened by an oil industry hit hard by the global recession and OPEC quota cuts, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) African Economic Outlook report has reported. Angola’s economy should contract 7.2%, assuming OPEC quota cuts hit oil production.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IT has long been outmoded and inaccurate to split the world into two camps: industrialised developed economies, and largely agricultural developing countries. The growth of the 1990s and the current decade means there is a wide range of social and economic sophistication and wealth amongst the poorer of these two old-fashioned categories.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL and EMMA JACKSON

IF the competition to build gas pipeline networks from Russia, the Caucasus and central Asia to central and western Europe were a horserace, commentators would say it was still too close to call.

For although politicians and diplomats in Brussels, Moscow and other European capitals would never admit it publicly, these multi-million investment projects are contests of power and influence.…

BY JAMES FULLER

WHILE the global recession is hitting profits in the oil and gas sector worldwide, the Caribbean’s key producer Trinidad & Tobago remains bullish about the industry bringing it long term financial and economic stability. Indeed, the twin-island country’s minister of energy and energy industries Conrad Enill said this month that both a fifth liquefied natural gas (LNG) train and a new oil refinery are projects which are still firmly on the table for the Caribbean energy powerhouse.…

BY LEE ADENDORFF

IF there was a year when long-term textile and clothing market forecasters missed by a mile, 2008 was it. Forecasts made in 2007 were dominated by looming concerns about trade restrictions, investment in technology, a potential slow-down of production and a consolidation of business investment but no one predicted what devastating effects an unexpected recession would have on the textiles and apparel sector.…

By Thompson Ayodele, in Lagos

As the Group of 20 top industrialised and developing economies prepared to meet in London, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon warned them that "the economic crisis may soon be compounded by an equally severe crisis of global instability." A key problem is that trade is deteriorating every day and political pressures demand import restrictions to protect employment. This is no way out: such protectionism would make this particular depression ‘Great’. 

Everyone says trade is the best way out – but on their own terms: last November, the G20 leaders signed a pledge against protectionism yet, in the second half of 2008, 17 out of the G20 passed 47 restrictions of trade, the World Bank claims. …

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE NIGERIAN government has assured the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) that it is acting seriously against pirates who have been targeting oil tankers and industry supply vessels in and offshore the country’s oil-rich delta. Nigeria transport minister Ibrahim Bio assured IMO in London a new Niger Delta ministry had "full powers to address…the problem of militancy and piracy."…

BY MONICA DOBIE

SOUTH Africa’s Wise Design International Ltd has announced plans to cultivate 40,000 hectares of sugarcane in the northern Nigeria state of Gombe to feed a proposed nearby state-of-the art sugar factory

ENDS…

BY MARK GODFREY

THE BUREAUCRATS and engineers who run China’s booming hydropower sector will be in listening mode in April when the world descends on Beijing for the second International Conference on Hydropower Technology & Equipment. The theme of this year’s government-sponsored gathering – ‘Sustainable China Hydropower Industry’ – reflects worries about the environmental impact of recent massive hydropower projects in China.…

BY GEORGE STONE

WHAT a difference a year has made in the African oil industry. With sky rocketing oil prices fuelling an expansion boom in 2007 and 2008, this year will be much tougher for the oil and gas sector in sub-Saharan Africa.…

BY GEORGE STONE

SOUTHERN Africa has always been rich in natural resources, but its ability to process and manufacture them has not always matched this bounty. Oil refining capacity is a case in point and the governments of South Africa, Angola and Mozambique are trying to push forward.…

BY MARK ROWE

INDONESIA’S paint industry appears likely to weather the worst of the global economic downturn. Indeed, Indonesia may be one of the few major countries where sales of paint for industrial and domestic use will rise. In January 2009, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono forecast economic growth of 6.2% for the year in a budget that revealed capital spending plans that were 14.3% up on 2008.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MEMORANDUM of understanding has been signed by Russia’s Gazprom and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation over joint gas and oil exploration and transportation projects in Nigeria. A joint venture company would carry out the work, focusing mainly on gas.…

BY JAMES FLYNN

RUSSIAN organised crime has left its fingerprints across eastern and western Europe in recent years. But now the gangs have begun to turn their sights on the international shipping industry, manipulating documents that are fundamental to the movement of international cargo for their own – usually money laundering – ends.…

BY SAEED AKHTAR BALOCH

PAKISTAN’s automobile industry, contributing 2.8 % to the country’s GDP by financial year (FY) 2006-7, has grown impressively this decade. But the sector’s growth may turn negative this year because of high inflation, especially rising steel prices, political uncertainty and overall economic recession in Pakistan and elsewhere.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A MAN-MADE ecological disaster that almost destroyed a fishing industry is now being reversed. The northern Aral Sea – once a shallow saline remnant – is now growing again, boosting fish production. Excess irrigation shrank central Asia’s Aral Sea by 70% from 1960 to 2004, and its level dropped about 20 metres, splitting it in two in 1990: a small Northern Aral Sea entirely within Kazakhstan and a large Southern Aral Sea, shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has offered financial and political support for a proposed Euro 15 billion trans-Saharan pipeline carrying natural gas from Nigeria to Europe. The move follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding by Russia’s Gazprom with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation over gas exploration and transportation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EFFORTS to improve the poor safety record of African civil aviation have sparked a parallel process to improve the management of airports and air traffic management in the continent. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is to stage a conference on the issue from September 15 to 20 in Montreal, Canada, to update its policies to dovetail with a Comprehensive Regional Implementation Plan for Aviation Safety in Africa, which is now being rolled out.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ETHIOPIA COMMODITY EXCHANGE OPENS

ETHIOPIA has opened a commodity exchange, designed to bring order to the country’s often chaotic food markets. Their informality effectively forces farmers to sell locally to traders they know and trust. This prevents commodities moving from regions where there is abundance to those where there are shortages, intensifying the risk of famine and for prices to plummet in districts with a production glut.…

By Keith Nuthall

The potential riches that can be gained by universities spinning off successful science units into commercial operations has been made clear by a deal involving Britain’s University of Surrey and Airbus-maker EADS Astrium.

It has acquired the university’s Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) for an estimated GBPounds 50 million.…

BY BILL CORCORAN, in South Africa

SOUTH Africa is in a race against time to ensure the country’s

burgeoning economy is not crippled by fuel shortages, forcing its oil and gas companies to innovate to ensure security of supply, notably from neighbouring countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A COMPREHENSIVE environmental assessment of oil-production impacted sites is being undertaken in Nigeria’s Niger Delta by the United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Development Programme. This follows a request by the Nigerian government peace initiative in Ogoniland.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SECURITY of nuclear power installations may be a priority in terrorism-fearing rich countries, but not in poorer states, with many other problems. But it is equally important of course: nuclear accidents, sabotage and terror attacks are devastating wherever they occur.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) member states and the European Commission are squaring up ahead of a political battle this autumn over anticipated energy liberalisation proposals. A letter from France, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg and Slovakia has been written to the Commission stating their firm opposition to comprehensive energy unbundling in anticipated proposed European Union (EU) legislation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC), of the World Bank, is backing Indorama International Finance’s purchase of 75% control of Nigeria’s state-owned Elem Petrochemical Company by securing US$155 million in investment. The IFC will provide US$75 itself and is generating US$80 from commercial lenders.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
IT’S had a somewhat laborious beginning but at long last it seems that the West African regional body for fighting money laundering – formally known as the Groupe Inter-gouvernemental d’Action contre le Blanchiment en Afrique (GIABA) – is ready to begin operations in earnest.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

IN an era when military intervention has been given a bad name through the Iraq morass, serving with the army, navy or air force might not be the immediate choice of many nurses as a career path which helps the needy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has highlighted countries with particularly significant counterfeiting and piracy of medicinal products. Following 290 replies from businesses, trade associations and diplomatic missions, covering 63 countries, its survey report named Egypt as a real problem zone, criticising the December 2004 approval of 850 local copies of pharmaceuticals "without generic companies having to "prove the efficiency and safety of the copy".…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, in New Delhi

"REFINERY Process Outsourcing" or simply RPO is an exciting buzzword in the otherwise hard-pressed Indian petroleum industry, as the term represents newly found and highly profitable venture of operating refineries to fulfil surging international demand.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has unveiled European Commission plans to next year launch comprehensive legislation boosting effective carbon capture and storage.

The laws would remove legal barriers impeding research and development into this environmental technology and would also lay down rules on liability, for instance, if stored CO2 leached into the environment.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

NIGERIA has launched its first project generating carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism: the construction of an efficient 120MW gas-fired power plant. This will boost unreliable power supplies in Aba, southern Nigeria, so that dirty on-site diesel generators are abandoned.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

SECURITY specialists and risk assessors will be increasingly in demand within oil majors seeking to tap sub-Saharan Africa’s oil and gas riches in the next few years, experts say, with available resources and political uncertainty growing in an uneasy parallel.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE NIGERIAN government has been removed from a Financial Action Task Force (FATF) black-list of countries deemed not cooperating with the international community’s crackdown on money laundering. FATF’s ruling plenary was persuaded by Nigeria setting up a financial intelligence unit to detect money laundering and movements of terrorist finance, while securing prosecutions and convictions from criminal investigations into these offences, leading to.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

SUB-SAHARAN Africa’s biggest cotton producer Mali is mulling GM cotton trials, a development which could open up cheap cotton supplies for the textile and clothing trade.

But resistance from local farmers to high seed costs and tough times for existing GM cotton growers in South Africa – the only African country where GM is commercially grown – may mean that Africa’s potential as a key supplier is still some way off.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

CENTRAL bankers, drug barons, warlords, corporate bosses and small town crooks in Africa are all washing their money despite attempts by governments and international law enforcement agencies to bring them to book. But financial crime has never been as lucrative as now on the world’s poorest continent.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

THE FORTEEN countries of the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) have their AML/CFT work cut out. Under-funded, lacking resources, short of political will and working in a region that leaks money like a sieve…it is a demanding context for the group’s daunting tasks.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

ONGOING recruitment of South African nurses to the UK is pushing South Africa’s already hard pressed public health system close to the brink of collapse and putting patient care at risk, the country’s lead nursing union and health experts have warned.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA, is the international organisation companies turn to when they want to invest in a jurisdiction where their assets might not be that safe. Oil and gas companies have long used MIGA to cover risks that are too tasty for the private insurance industry, and at December 2005, MIGA had supported 13 oil and gas projects, with guarantees totalling US$707 million, with a standard leverage of five-to-one, so investments covered are actually five times larger.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE COUNTRIES of eastern and southern Africa pose two particularly serious challenges for the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the world’s leading anti money laundering agency, according to Alain Damais, the organisation’s executive secretary. In an interview with the Money Laundering Bulletin, he also discussed developments in money laundering typologies, the progress made by China towards becoming an FATF member and EU legislation designed to thwart laundering.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE ORGANISATION for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is predicting annual aid to the poorest countries will reach about US$130 billion by 2010, up US$50 billion from 2004. That said donor countries need to increase standard development spending to sustain an 2005-06 increase sparked by Iraq and Nigeria debt relief and Tsunami-linked emergency assistance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BY KEITH NUTHALL

UNEP – RISK MANAGEMENT

A BOOK detailing practical ways in which governments can reduce the costs of dealing with major challenges such bird flu, terrorism and climate change has been released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BIRD flu has reached Africa, the Office International des Épizooties (OIE), the world animal health organisation, has confirmed, citing an outbreak in Kaduna state, northern Nigeria involving 46,000 cases. The news poses a dismal outlook for efforts to contain the disease given sub-Saharan Africa’s shambolic regulatory and veterinary controls, and international health workers will inevitably fear the worst.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

FURTHER global restrictions on the tobacco industry are to be developed, the first Conference of the Parties to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control has decided. Meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, diplomats established working groups to develop legally binding protocols, using the convention as their authority, that further limit cross-border tobacco advertising and smuggling.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD’S senior anti-money laundering body, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is to focus on Africa, following a meeting of the international organisation, in Cape Town last week. FATF members approved a strategy where its officials and those of the Eastern and Southern Africa Money Laundering Group "work together more aggressively to combat money laundering and terrorist financing in the region".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SATELLITE images of the shrinking Aral Sea in central Asia have long horrified environmentalists, but now similar creeping disasters are threatening the many fresh water and brackish lakes of Africa. These are illustrated by disturbing satellite images within an atlas produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).…

BY MONICA DOBIE
AN ENVIRONMENTAL organisation has blamed American businesses for dodging safe, but costly recycling methods for their used computer equipment by shipping them to developing countries in an insincere show of philanthropy, which actually causes severe environmental damage.

A report called ‘The Digital Dump: Exporting Reuse and Abuse to Africa,’ written by the Seattle-based Basel Action Network, says the bulk of used computer equipment sent from the United States to developing countries for use in homes, schools and businesses is often neither usable nor repairable.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SATELLITE images of the shrinking Aral Sea in central Asia have long horrified environmentalists, but now similar creeping disasters are threatening the many fresh water and brackish lakes of Africa. These are illustrated by disturbing satellite images within an atlas produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A WELL-FINANCED international programme to remove stocks of obsolete pesticides from Africa has been launched, protecting communities from persistent organic pollutants. The first phase of the Africa Stockpiles Programme (ASP-P1) has now been approved by the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL Atomic Energy Agency director general Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei has visited Nigeria and Ghana to see how his UN agency has been installing radiotherapy units in local hospitals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE SEPTEMBER 11 attacks sparked a tightening of security restrictions around the world and the shipping industry has been a key focus. The latest initiative is the creation of a global system of biometric identifiers for seafarers. Keith Nuthall reports.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is sending legal and accounting specialists to Nigeria and Kenya, to help them trace and recover money stolen by previous corrupt governments. The agency will “conduct in-depth assessments of (their) institutional and legal frameworks”, making detailed proposals to “overcome obstacles to asset recovery”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is sending legal and accounting specialists to Nigeria and Kenya, to help them trace and recover money stolen by previous corrupt governments. The Vienna-based agency says it will “conduct in-depth assessments of the institutional and legal frameworks” in these countries, making detailed proposals to “overcome obstacles to asset recovery”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank has staged its first workshop explaining its Voluntary Standard for the Reduction of Global Venting and Flaring of Associated Gas. The meeting was held in Nigeria, which flares more gas than other countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GLOBAL corruption watchdog Transparency International has confirmed Britain’s place as one of the world’s cleaner countries, ranking it 11th in its annual league table of government probity. In a report containing few surprises, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Iceland and Singapore were lauded has having the most honest governments, while the graft-ridden administrations of Nigeria, Bangladesh and Haiti were bottom of the table.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WANT to sell cigarettes? Go east, young man. That might be the advice that tobacco companies could glean from the latest set of World Health Organisation (WHO) smoking figures. Using 2003 or latest available data, the WHO has collated percentage rate proportions of smoking adults (18 and over), compared with total populations of all but 56 countries: the overwhelming majority of nations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT could be the most underestimated commercial crime in the world, the illegal trade in wildlife and their products. Some estimates put its value at US$5 billion-a-year, but governments do not really seem to care. Keith Nuthall reports.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
‘CATCH me if you can’ might well be the motto of international money launderers. Despite laws criminalising the practice being well established, international organisations are continuing to extend their legal and geographical scope. Keith Nuthall reports.

IF a continent has need of comprehensive cross-border anti-money laundering legislation, it surely has to be Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NOBODY likes to be on a blacklist, especially one written by the American government. But every year, the US state department issues a comprehensive rogues gallery of countries involved in the narcotics trade and related criminal problems. One surprising entrant: the United States.…

BY EDWARD PETERS
DEPENDING on who you ask, Taiwan is either a renegade province or to all intents and purposes an independent nation, albeit one that currently lacks full international recognition. To suggest that it could be a fully functioning country in its own right to anyone in Beijing – the capital of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – is tantamount to treason.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN has been given a relatively clean bill of health in the latest Transparency International corruption rankings, being viewed as joint-11th least-corrupt country in the world, sharing its billing with Canada and Luxembourg. Finland was the most honest place in which to do business said the pressure group’s survey, followed by Iceland and the Denmark plus New Zealand at joint third.…

BY RICHARD HURST
Nigeria is widely regarded as the country as the hub of money-laundering activities in the region, despite having a reasonably comprehensive set of anti-money laundering laws in place. Press and non-governmental organisation reports have highlighted cases where Nigerian banks have been hit by money launderers trying to conceal illicit earnings from corruption, the arms trade, narcotics and the e-mail frauds.…

BY RICHARD HURST
IF there is one area of the world where a zealous anti-money laundering practitioner descend into the pits of despair, it would surely be west Africa, where there are a comprehensive lack of effective controls over the flow of money in and out of the region.…

BY RICHARD HURST
The Ivory Coast used to be a model of stability in west Africa, but the outbreak of civil war has done little to improve the country’s status in terms of money laundering, said an assessment by the US State Department.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GLOBAL Fund for the Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is giving US$26 million to west Africa’s Burkina Faso to boost its fight against HIV/AIDS and malaria; the money will be distributed by the United Nations Development Programme.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations (UN) has framed a new anti-corruption convention and its established convention against organised crime is now coming into force. Keith Nuthall examines what this will mean for businesses, banks and governments.

THE COMMERCIAL world is often doubtful about the value of international conventions fighting crime, but their texts do at least reflect a global consensus amongst concerned governments.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A UNITED Nations (UN) Convention against Transnational Organised Crime has come into force, imposing a duty on ratifying countries to outlaw membership of an organised criminal group, which it defines legally. So far, said the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 48 countries have ratified it, including Monaco, Nigeria, Serbia & Montenegro, Peru, Spain, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Philippines, Tajikistan, Albania, France, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, China, Norway and Afghanistan.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Primate Protection League has welcomed CITES secretary general Willem Wijnstekers’s call for prosecutions over the illegal sale of four young wild gorillas from Nigeria to Malaysia, via South Africa. League chairwoman Shirley McGreal told BBC Wildlife the intervention made court action “more likely,” although she has criticised the case’s handling.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE REFORM of the world’s anti-money laundering campaign is continuing apace. Defying critics of its alliance with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the Financial Action Task Force of the OECD has issued a revised set of its key 40 Recommendations to fight the crime.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MOVES to spread the wealth generated by the African oil industry amongst local populations have been debated at the 7th African Oil & Gas, Trade & Finance Conference, in Luanda, Angola. Co-organiser the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) promoted ways of transforming the industry “from its present status as a virtual enclave in which foreign companies absorb most of the gross revenue.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MOVES to spread the wealth generated by the African oil industry amongst local populations have been debated at the 7th African Oil & Gas, Trade & Finance Conference, in Luanda, Angola. Co-organiser the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) promoted ways of transforming the industry “from its present status as a virtual enclave in which foreign companies absorb most of the gross revenue.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A PHD in rocket science is not required to understand that corruption is a problem worldwide. But such a qualification – and more – would be required to devise an effective plan to fight this financial plague. The United Nations’ (UN) is drafting an international convention on corruption and asked a string of experts to write reports to illuminate some issues.…

Keith Nuthall
A CRIMINAL group based in the Lebanon is stealing multi-million dollar cargoes, the International Chamber of Commerce’s International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has warned. It has reported that the group is running at least two vessels off the eastern Mediterranean, north African, and west African coasts, which they use to divert cargoes from their agreed destination.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
The UN Environment Programme says that within five years most African countries will be close to phasing out leaded petrol. Egypt, Libya, Mauritius and Sudan – are already lead-free, to be joined this year by Morocco, Reunion and Tunisia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WAY back when….last December….the International Maritime Organisation agreed a compulsory maritime security code for its member countries, covering ships and ports involved in international trade. Governments have to write the code into their laws by December 31 and shipping companies and port authorities are supposed to comply by June 2004.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AGREEMENT on legislation lowering the maximum level of sulphur content in European Union (EU) diesel and petrol to 10 ppm has been struck by the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. They agreed these low sulphur fuels must be available throughout the EU from January 1, 2005, and mandatory from January 1, 2009.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union and its allies at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) negotiations over the creation of a global register for protected geographical indications in the wine and spirit trade have made a significant concession, which may be the basis for a future deal.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TOO many cooks spoil the broth. Or do they? As far as the world’s fight against money laundering is concerned, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund think that they can bring extra flavour to the struggle waged by the OECD’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union and its allies at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) negotiations over the creation of a global register for protected geographical indications in the wine and spirit trade have made a significant concession, which may be the basis for a future deal.…

BY RICHARD HURST
MONEY laundering is all about fake respectability, transforming the seedy and ill-gotten into the legitimate and well-earned; so in Africa, where better to launder criminal money than through the continent’s most developed economy, South Africa.

Mike Savage, partner at Ernst & Young South Africa, said that the biggest problem facing African governments wanting to seriously tackle money laundering is to pinpoint the movement of funds that are moved across porous borders in a bid to cover tracks and conceal sources.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
FOLLOWING “significant reforms” to its anti-money laundering system, Russia

has been removed from the list of non-cooperative countries maintained by

the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, its parent body, the

OECD, has announced.

FATF president Jochen Sanio said Russia had given “strong assurances that

it will bring to a completion this reform process and the

implementation of its anti-money laundering framework.”…

Keith Nuthall
THE UNITED Nations’ (UN) International Court of Justice has fixed the disputed maritime boundary between Nigeria and Cameroon, having decided that the contested Bakassi Peninsula should be considered part of Cameroon.

The court ruled that the maritime boundary should be set from the point of intersection of the centre of the navigable channel of the Akwayafe River with the straight line joining Bakassi Point and King Point, with many elements following previous Cameroon-Nigeria agreements dating back to the 1970’s.…

BY MARK ROWE
INTERNATIONAL organisations are supposed to help business fight off sophisticated crime networks, but now the fraudsters are turning the tables and using the good name of these institutions as part of their scams. Mark Rowe reports.

IT STARTED with a fax from a Chinese businessman to the Vienna headquarters of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EVERY minute of every day a million smokers light up a cigarette made by BAT and the company’s goal is that every one of them is perfect. How does BAT manage this, and at the same time meet its production, technical and environmental challenges when operations are on such a colossal scale ?…

BY ALAN OSBORN
1902-1912

British American Tobacco was created on September 29th 1902 as a joint venture between Imperial Tobacco Company of the UK and the American Tobacco Company of the US following a fierce trade war. The parent companies agreed not to trade in each other’s domestic territory and to assign trademarks, export businesses and overseas subsidiaries to the joint venture.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PRACTICE of allowing companies to deduct bribes paid to secure contracts overseas from their domestic tax bills is still widespread, with a United Nations report saying it was allowed in 50 per cent of countries surveyed. The paper on how the organisation’s 1996 declaration against Corruption and Bribery in International Commercial Transactions said that it was however banned in Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Iceland, Nigeria, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.…

BY RICHARD HURST
SOUTH African chemical company Sasol has entered into an agreement with Nigerian national Petroleum Corporation and Chevron Nigeria to develop the Nigeria-based Escravos gas to liquids plant.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SLOWLY but surely, the world is becoming a little more open and honest in its business transactions. Bribery and corruption have existed as long as people have traded with each other and in some parts of the world remain as matter-of-fact as ever.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Court of Justice has announced five weeks of public hearings for a case between Nigeria and Cameroon, who are disputing their mutual maritime border. Nigerian troops currently occupy part of the disputed Bakassi peninsular, provoking the Cameroon government into launching the case, which calls for a fixing of the coastal and associated sea frontiers and the withdrawal of foreign forces.…

BY RICHARD HURST
USA President George W. Bush has approved 35 African countries as eligible for tariff preferences regarding clothing and textile exports to America under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), with Zimbabwe and Gambia being notable sub-Saharan African pariahs from the move.…

Keith Nuthall
BACKGROUND

IN traditional ‘old economy’ sectors the malpractice of ‘passing off’ is usually pretty tough to achieve. Setting up a shop or restaurant that looks similar to an established chain can entail a lot of expense and could end in a lawsuit preventing any trading going ahead, and maybe leading to a compensation order.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL aid programmes are often regarded as a soft touch by criminals, who try to plunder their fat budgets, thinking that they are controlled by well-meaning innocents. Not so the World Bank; it has been investigating fraud in its development projects for years and it is getting tougher.…