Nigerian company builds new cement works in Senegal

A Nigerian company, Dangote, is building a new cement factory in Senegal worth 250 billion francs CFA, Abdou Kader Mbacké, Director General of Dangote Industrie Sénégal, a subsidiary of the group, announced in Dakar.

Mbacké said the factory would produce 2.5 million tonnes of cement per annum, create 1,000 direct jobs and 5,000 indirect jobs.

"Construction works at the cement factory started more than one month ago in Pout, in the Thiès region, some 60 kilometres east of Dakar," Mr Mbacké said.

He said the group, which is involved in cement production, hydrocarbons and food processing, targets the market of the sub-region, including Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Côte d'Ivoire.

Mr Mbacké said Dangote was already established in Benin and Ghana.

He also announced the launch of feasibility studies for the construction in Senegal of a new sugar factory, maintaining that his group is ready to provide hydrocarbons without financial guarantee to the National Electricity Company (SENELEC).

The Dangote Group's turnover stands at more than 1,000 billion francs CFA per year and it has several subsidiaries in Africa.

Afriquenligne

1. African states assert their willing participation in EPA talks

2. Business booms for South Africa/Zimbabwe cross-border traders

3. Rwanda bourse trades $1.2 mln in first year

4. Tax havens drain poor nations, OECD says

5. Kenya bans two South African products

6. Ethiopia's export trade faces challenges

7. Questions asked about "fair trade" claims

8. Turkey says trade with Africa to hit $ 19 billion

9. Algeria 2008 trade heads for record high

10. Aid leaves Africa poorer; more dependent

11. IMF urged to "end imperialist ways"

12. Renowned Nigeria computer market shut over taxes

13. Is failure to export manufactured products due to comparative advantage?

14. Demand high for Africa-China trade facilitation services

15. Rwandan growth could reach 10%

16. Investments pour into Sierra Leone mining

17. EU "plans to dump" milk, butter in Africa

18. Spanish investors explore Senegalese market

19. Ugandan traders face attack in Sudan

African states assert their willing participation in EPA talks

The vociferous campaign against the partnership agreements the European Union is seeking with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries has been shot down by its African partners, who say their bid to sell products in the EU market is being undermined.

The talks continue to be long and drawn out and many problems remain to be sorted out, the Zambian minister of Trade, Commerce and Industry, Felix Mutati, told SouthScan during a recent COMESA trade and investment conference in Brussels.

But he disagreed with civil society organizations that claimed that as a result of the dismantling of tariffs African economies could simply be wiped out by imports from Europe.

"Our markets are so small. If we begin to erect fences, we will not be able to grow. That is principle number one," he said at the meeting, held on November 18-19.

African countries needed an adjustment period to address the level of the industrial base. "The problem is to determine how long that takes. We must still agree on the schedule of the sensitive products", Mutati said.

"The list of sensitive products varies from one country to another. The harmonization is a challenge. So, inside our tent, we need to come up with a common list and that is where we are at the moment. We also have to understand clearly the rules of origin", he said.

Negotiations for the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union and the 19 members of the Common market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) are likely to last at least until next July.

South Africa has been particularly antagonistic to the EPA negotiations, and defiance by other members of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and refusal to follow its lead has led to threats of a break-up of that organisation.

Relations with Botswana on the issue have already chilled, and SAs leadership within SADC, the Southern African Development Community, which is due to join with COMESA in a super trade bloc, is also being questioned.

COMESA has not either followed the hard line that the SA government has promoted and it expects that the full EPA, including both trade in goods and services, will be agreed, though not earlier than July next year, according to Mutati.

Negotiations still have to progress on market access, according to an official in COMESA's Brussels liaison office, Gervais Nkanagu.

Like Mutati and most of the 150 participants at the event, he believed that the NGOs engaged in the 'Stop EPAs' campaign were not doing any favours to those who promoted products from the region, such as Kenyan cut flowers or Ethiopian leather goods.

COMESA and blocs such as the East African Community (EAC), the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), signed an agreement with the European Commission on November 15 that puts €645 million from the 10th European Development Fund (EDF) at their disposal to support the regional integration process.

Some 85 percent of these EDF resources will support the implementation of customs unions and the creation of common internal markets and eventually monetary unions. The programme will also support the implementation of the regulatory framework, and provide financial support for the trade liberalisation process and its possible economic and fiscal costs. It will also aim at leveraging funds for trade-related infrastructure to depen regional integration.

allafrica.com

Business booms for South Africa/Zimbabwe cross-border traders

Once it was a quiet border town, but now it's on a knife edge as tensions between foreigners and residents grow.

Musina, say those who live there, has become like the Wild West, with little law or order.

The whole focus of the town has changed, from a place that used to win the railway station of the year award to a business district aimed solely at providing goods to Zimbabwean cross-border traders and refugees trying to flee from Robert Mugabe

"We can't even go to our local Spar (supermarket chain) anymore. These guys come here at 6.30 every morning, park their taxis and bakkies in the parking lot and stay for the whole day," said one woman who didn't want to be identified.

"If we want to go to the shops we have to park miles away and walk," she added.

A Zimbabwean cross-border trader said that even though Zimbabwe wasn't as great as it used to be, he was happy that the whites were thrown out and he "doesn't mind a little bit of cholera" as his business is booming because of it. He has even had to hire another driver to keep up with demand.

A drive through Musina's main street on a Saturday revealed more vehicles with Zimbabwean registration plates than South African ones. Almost all these vehicles were loaded with maize meal, water containers, blankets and building supplies.

These issues come amid calls from Limpopo health authorities to declare the Musina area a disaster zone. They claim their resources are being stretched to the limit and that they're running out of money to stop the spread of the disease.

The clinic that was set up in Madimbo village, about 130km from Musina, by the NGO Gift of the Givers is treating scores of patients every day, with nurses and staff working long hours. Of these patients, at least 20 are taken via ambulance to the hospital in Musina every day. The village is close to the Wanedi River, suspected of being infected with cholera.

Despite this, people in the area say they will continue fishing in it and drinking the water because it's the only water they have.

Zimbabwean refugees living in the informal camp at the Musina show grounds are desperate, and more are flocking to the grounds every day. Some of them have been there for more than three weeks.

An early morning visit to the camp revealed hundreds of men, women and children sleeping out in the open. Some of the inhabitants have erected makeshift tents to help them brave the elements.

The despair is most visible in the eyes of the mothers and children. NGOs are providing what support they can, but there is not enough food, and most of the children go to bed hungry every night.

IOL

Rwanda bourse trades $1.2 mln in first year

By Frank Nyakairu

Rwanda's stock exchange recorded $1.2 million in bond trades in its first year and will launch an equities market soon, a senior official said on Thursday.

Investors have been increasingly drawn to African economies like Rwanda that have grown strongly in recent years, and are relatively insulated from the global financial crisis. Rwanda's central bank forecasts growth of nearly 10 percent in 2008.

"We started with the bond market first," said Robert Mathu, head of the Rwanda Capital Markets Advisory Council. "This is important because it lays a good ground for a vibrant equities market which we expect in the near future."

Mathu said several private firms and others co-owned by the government would list on the bourse soon, including Fina Bank, Rwanda Commercial Bank, and Rwanda Breweries. Some plan to cross-list with the stock exchanges in Kenya and Tanzania.

Rwanda has also been asked by the East Africa Securities Regulatory Authority to help develop a bourse in neighbouring Burundi, which like Rwanda was wracked by years of civil war.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame, a former rebel commander, is credited by his supporters with restoring order, achieving healthy economic growth and developing new sectors such as IT.

Critics say his authoritarian style hampers democracy.

In an interview last month, Rwanda's central bank governor told Reuters growth could hit nearly 10 percent in 2008 thanks to strong performances in farming, manufacturing and services.

But he said the fallout from turmoil on the global financial markets would push growth down to 6-7 percent next year.

Rwanda, like the rest of east Africa, has faced a dual attack from high oil and commodity prices. The coffee-growing country relies mostly on expensive imports from Kenya's Mombasa port.

Reuters

Tax havens drain poor nations, OECD says

By Lisa Jucca ZURICH

Offshore centres that attract untaxed wealth from developing countries are depriving poorer nations of revenues they need to weather the global economic crisis, a top OECD official said.

Governments in advanced economies such as the United States and the European Union are toughening their stance against tax dodgers in a bid to catch as much taxable income as possible in their net. But developing countries with less sophisticated tax authorities and few resources are finding that task much harder.

"Tax havens have a bigger impact on developing countries than on developed countries," said Jeffrey Owens, director of the Centre for Tax Policy Administration at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. "There is an enormous drainage of revenues to tax havens. This is equivalent to around 7 to 8 percent of gross domestic product for the African continent and a multiple of the aid it gets from developed countries."

Owens said issues surrounding tax collection had been rising on the agenda of world leaders and would be tackled at a United Nation gathering this weekend in Doha on development aid. He said a parallel push to reduce barriers to trade through the Doha world trade round -- which has no relationship to the weekend U.N. meeting in the Qatari capital -- also stood to deprive poorer countries of key tariff revenues.

While cutting import duties is desirable on a global basis, because it would pry open markets to cross-border commerce, Owens said the easy-to-collect tariffs now constitute as much as half of many poorer countries' entire tax collection. "It's far easier to levy a tariff than to collect value added tax. You just need a guy at the border," he said. "But as more and more countries join the World Trade Organisation they join in the commitment to reduce tariffs."

There are 153 members involved in the WTO's Doha round talks, which would cut barriers to trade in both goods and services around the world. World leaders are pushing for a breakthrough in those negotiations as early as next month.

The OECD has been spearheading a decade-long campaign against tax havens and has engaged with offshore centres to ensure those countries implement transparency standards and exchange information with other jurisdictions. Only Liechtenstein, Andorra and Monaco are on its "black list" of uncooperative financial centres that have failed to make the political commitment to new standards.

But Owens said another group had not yet fully implemented the standards they had signed up for, including Cayman Islands, Samoa, Panama, and the Bahamas. Only seven centres -- Aruba, the Dutch Antilles, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey -- were fully compliant with OECD transparency standards. And other centres, notably Singapore, had made no political commitment of any sort and were benefiting from being outside the reach of a European Union bill for the taxation of interest from non-resident savings Switzerland has signed up to, he said.

All offshore centres are likely to face more pressure from industrialised nations as the growing financial crisis forces governments to seek more sources of cash. An attempt by the EU to extend its savings directive to non-EU jurisdictions may challenge Singapore, according to Owens. "The political climate is changing and I do not think that Singapore is correctly reading the political signs that a change is about to come," he said.

Reuters

Kenya bans two South African products

BY KEVIN KEYA

Kenya on Monday banned the importation of two milk products from South Africa.

Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) slammed the ban on baby formulas Nido and Lactogen after establishing that the two products contained melamine.

In a statement sent to newsrooms on Monday, KEBS Managing Director Kioko Mang’eli said investigations to establish the source and the quality of the two products had been initiated.

Mr Mang’eli also said that the earlier ban on importation of milk, eggs and their related products from China and other related countries was still in force.

“Kenya Bureau of Standards’ attention has been drawn to the effect that two products mentioned above imported from South Africa contain melamine,” read the brief statement.

This comes against the backdrop of an existing ban imposed on milk and dairy products from China in September; following reports the product contained the chemical, which is normally used to make plastics and that caused four deaths of infants in China and left over 50,000 children hospitalised.

It was discovered in Chinese-made dairy products, including milk powder, liquid milk and yoghurt.

According to media reports, the harmful chemical was in many reported cases added to watered-down milk to make it appear higher in protein, but led to kidney stones developing in the infants.

Despite the government ban 50 cartons of banned Chinese milk products weighing 2,276 kilograms were impounded in late October in the country at the port of Mombasa, against which Public Health Minister Beth Mugo ordered a reshipment to Shanghai, unopened.

The European Union (EU) also in late September stopped all imports of baby food containing traces of milk from China, and Hong Kong besides recalling two products found to contain melamine, including a brand of Heinz baby food.

Japan on the other hand (in September) ordered firms which import dairy products from China to test them for melamine after the chemical was found in four items made by one of its leading food makers.

Capital Times