Consumer Products and Goods

Commencement of the AfCFTA. The landmark African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is slated to go into force on July 1, 2020. When fully implemented, the trade agreement will eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers, and substantially increase intra-regional trade to volumes worth over $3.3 trillion. Twenty-nine countries have deposited their…
Continue Reading Top Issues to Watch in Africa in 2020

According to news reports, the Ghanaian Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovations will “sanction a directive in two weeks” banning the production and importation of non-degradable plastic products.

Like many countries, Ghana’s rapid development has put significant pressure on sanitation management systems in the country’s urban centers.  However,…
Continue Reading Ghana Set to Ban Non-Degradable Plastics

The expanding middle class has been one of the cornerstones of the “Africa rising” narrative.  Discussion of that topic has been particularly lively over the past few weeks.  From a private sector perspective, this debate presents an interesting lesson about doing business in Africa’s consumer goods sector.

As an initial…
Continue Reading Africa’s Middle Class: Not Hype But Challenging To Get Right

This week, numerous companies from emerging economies will gather in India to participate in the third annual Growth Net conference, a unique platform focused on promoting business, trade and financial partnerships amongst the countries represented.  South-South cooperation will be the focus of much of Growth Net’s agenda, and a principal…
Continue Reading India’s ICT Companies Lead the Way to Further Indian Investment in Africa

With more than half of Africa’s 54 countries expected to grow at faster than 5 percent annually in the next ten years, and its GDP projected to increase to $5 to 6 billion by 2025, Africa presents lucrative investment opportunities for foreign companies looking to expand into new markets. For…
Continue Reading India in Africa: Expanding Opportunities in the Consumer Goods Sector

The economy in Sub-Saharan Africa continues to grow.  A handful of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa, it has the world’s greatest population of young people and the number of middle class consumers – estimated to be 350 million – is booming. With such a…
Continue Reading Retail Distribution in Africa: Challenge and Opportunity

A new, comprehensive report published by the African Union’s high-level panel on illicit financial flows and the United Nations economic commission for Africa (Uneca) concludes that Africa loses more than $50 billion every year to illicit financial flows (IFFs).  The report, entitled Illicit Financial Flows, represents the first African …
Continue Reading AU-UN Report Reveals Startling Illicit Financial Flows in Africa

In the coming months, Egypt and the American company Blumberg Grain will create the world’s largest integrated food storage system for grain, constructing 93 sophisticated wheat storage facilities across Egypt that will process 3.7 million tons annually and store 750,000 tons of wheat.  The food storage system will launch this …
Continue Reading Egypt and Blumberg Grain Launch World’s Largest Integrated Food Storage System

IBM and Metropolitan Health–one of South Africa’s largest financial services and healthcare companies–recently announced Africa’s first commercial application of IBM’s Watson Engagement Advisor (“Watson”).  Watson is a potentially revolutionary cognitive computing application that can “comprehend” a question posed to it in natural language, process relevant data equivalent to about one …
Continue Reading IBM and Metropolitan Health Announce Africa’s First Commercial Application of Watson Engagement Advisor

The U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means is currently considering the renewal and strengthening of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).  AGOA is the cornerstone of the U.S.-African commercial relationship, and the African Union (AU) has called for a 15 year extension of the Act, from 2015 to…
Continue Reading Strengthening U.S.-Africa Trade and Investment