Is Africa’s Economy Under the Threat of Recolonization?
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Sent: Friday, February 7, 2014 7:28 AM
Subject: Is Africa’s Economy Under the Threat of Recolonization?
Good People of the World,
It is the year of organizing and getting involve in serious engagement within Social, Economic and Political balance and in diversifying Africa's grassroots activities towards building landscapes within industrial and technology, science and engineering transfer and exchange aspects.It is our hope that America's Partnership with Africa shall be for Economic excellence in a successful development moving forward.2014 is the year of walking the talk and putting the talk into action.It is competition meeting challenges from political responsibility that must allows Africa's valuable wealth and resources to be of meaning in the quest of Global economic balance and where Mutual fair prospects are able to preserve and safeguard livelihood and survival that are presently under the threat of re-coloniation...........
This threat of re-colonization is evil.This is a strategy of doom and all good people must condemn it.It means giving Chinese opportunity to acquired tools to destroy Africa and create Global economic collapse and disharmony; it is unthinkable and mostly unacceptable.The way to go is most secure that shall bring Peace, Unity and Happiness the world wants............2014 is our breakthrough year. Since Africa holds the basket of the Worlds wealth resource the economy of the world need, the same that the Chinese with their greedy Corporate Agents want, Africa has a right to be heard favorably in their demand for fair share of respect, honor, dignity, value and virtue. It is why we believe the world will pay attention and work with us for greater prosperity of all people of the world................
I love you all……………and we need each other to succeed……….
Cheers everybody..................!!!
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com/
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com/
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Is Africa’s Economy Under the Threat of Recolonization?
February 6, 2014 | Posted by
African leaders (presidents, heads of government, etc.) gathered in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, this past summer to celebrate 50 years of the successes and challenges of the Organization of African Unity, OAU, now known as the African Union, AU.
In less than four decades, the organization was able to support and sustain various struggles for political independence on the African continent. These struggles were often violent like the national liberation movements in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, among others.
The leaders of the OAU, despite their serious ideological differences on account of the cold war, closed ranks and negotiated the political independence of countries in the continent. In fact, the two existing world powers ( the U.S. and Soviet Union) often supported different liberation movements within a country during the fight for independence.
It is important to give credit to the earlier leaders of the organization such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Gamel Nasser of Egypt, Ben Bella of Algeria, Modibo Keita of Mali, Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Sekou Toure of Guinea, Haile Salassie of Ethiopia, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and others who sacrificed their personal comfort, territorial space, and resources to ensure political independence for countries in the African continent.
During the independence celebration of Ghana, President Nkrumah asserted that the independence of Ghana was incomplete except it was linked to the total liberation of Africa. What the African Union is trying to pursue, like the African Economic Union, owes its root to the analysis of Nkrumah who, indeed, was far ahead of his time. The African Liberation Committee of the then-OAU located in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, was very active. Tanzania gave a large area of its country to the African National Congress– the movement that fought for the liberation of South Africa. During the struggle for the emancipation of that country, Nigeria was the only frontline state outside the frontline countries and it committed much of its resources to the political independence of not just South Africa but to all the other countries struggling for independence.
After countries in Africa gained political independence, economic freedom became a serious challenge. African countries were unable to break away from the economic aprons of their former colonial masters. These imperial powers, like Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal, had integrated their colonies into the world capitalist system. Therefore, in essence, though the African countries were politically independent, their economies remained neo-colonial.
African countries exported raw materials, natural resources and unskilled labor to the economies of their former oppressors. Within the African countries, the new leadership and elite class became more interested in primitive capitalist accumulation than in addressing the fundamental problems of underdevelopment, hopelessness and poverty. This is not to suggest that there were no marginal successes such as the emergence of an educated class of Africans, relative infrastructural development, etc.
For the most part, the economies of Africa, particularly sub-Sahara Africa, SSA, were driven by the ups and downs of prices of commodity exports. No economy in SSA is industrialized, thus most of the existing companies were either assembly plants, packaging or bottling. In addition, they were branches of transnational companies and so the situation remains the same today.
Apart from bad economic and political governance, the austerity measures and later the structural adjustment programs in most African countries in the late 1970s and 1980s could be traced to sharp drops in the prices of commodity exports.
When variables like primitive accumulations, corruption and looting of the treasuries are added to the equation of Africa’s development, it is not surprising that poverty has increased, inequality has widened and most, if not all of the countries, thus remain underdeveloped. In Botswana and Ghana, two countries seen as success stories by the Breton Woods Institutions, poverty and widened income inequality still persist.
Freeing the economies of Africa from dependence on commodity exports remains a serious challenge. This present crop of African leaders emerging from democratic struggles have attempted to better manage their economies in a macroeconomic sense. For example, in the recent global economic crisis, African economies grew positively and were less hit by the global financial crisis. During the crisis, the performance of macroeconomic fundamentals such as growth, inflation and unemployment were relatively satisfactory. Of course, most of the African economies do not have sophisticated financial systems, hence their partial insulation from the global crisis.
All recent forecasts show that economies of Africa are experiencing macroeconomic stability, reflecting moderate inflation and robust growth. Ethiopia has a growth rate of 7.2 per cent, Nigeria 6.5 per cent with single digit inflation, and South Africa about 5 per cent.
Sub-Sahara Africa was projected to grow by about 5.2 per cent in 2013 and 5.8 per cent in 2014. SSA economies are now the destination for new investors, especially in infrastructure. A few years ago, the World Bank published: Can Africa Claim the 21st Century? Several scholars and those interested in Africa’s development have argued that Africa would be the next continent to leapfrog into sustained development.
The austerity in the economies of Europe has resulted in the search for new markets and Africa is the continent to explore and exploit. Even the Portuguese who destroyed the economies of their former colonies, have returned to Angola, Mozambique and others to invest and search for employment. The new entrants from Asia, particularly China, have massive investments in Africa. Are they properly engaged by our leaders and policymakers? African leaders, policy-makers and technocrats must negotiate with these new investors bearing in mind that despite the macroeconomic stability and satisfactory growth, the African economy is suffering from very high rate of unemployment (25 percent),especially among the youths, extreme poverty and widening inequality – unprecedented in the last 20 years.
These ”new” investors are not charity organizations, but are interested in not just earning high returns for their investments but also in growing their austerity-stricken economies in Europe. Today’s African leaders must work aggressively towards economic emancipation so that 25 years from today, Africa would be a developed, modern and knowledge-based continent with poverty at its barest minimum.
By Akpan- H. Ekpo a Professor of Economics, is Director-General, West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management
Source: tellng.com
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10 Reasons African-Americans Should Invest in Africa
February 2, 2014 | Posted by
Africa has the most natural resources in the world. For example: Just one country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is estimated to have $24 trillion worth of untapped deposits of raw mineral ores, which is equivalent to the combined total Gross Domestic Product of Europe and the United States combined. These raw minerals include cobalt, copper, niobium, tantalum, industrial and gem diamonds, gold, silver, zinc, manganese, tin, uranium, coal, petrol and timber. It is believed that 80 percent of the world’s coltan is in the Congo.
Besides the raw resources, there are plenty other investment opportunities in Africa and with proper organized initiatives many African-Americans that may want to invest can make plenty of money for their efforts.
According to Jerome Almon, a businessman and an economist, “African Americans spend well over a trillion dollars annually, and it does us no good, however investing in Africa through business ventures can create thousands of new millionaires, and dozens of new billionaires in a wide range of categories.”
Below are 10 solid reasons why African-Americans should organize campaigns or join other solid initiatives to invest in Africa.
Ten percent of the world’s oil reserves and 40 percent of the world’s proven gold reserves are found in Africa, according to experts. In addition, Africa contains 90 percent of the world’s platinum reserves, about 80 percent of its cocoa and diamonds, 60 percent of its phosphate, 50 percent of its bauxite and chromium reserves, 20 percent of its titanium, and close to 15 percent of its oil and natural gas. As other countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China continue industrialize, they’re going to be demanding more and more of these commodities. (Source: US Geological Survey).
Ozii Obiyo, an international business consultant, used the term “untapped” to describe Africa’s potential for positive growth across many sectors, in a recent interview. For example, besides all the raw materials that are untapped, Africa has 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land. Experts estimate that the continent’s agricultural output could increase from $280 billion (USD) –the estimate as of July 2010– to $ 500 billion (USD) by 2020 and as much as $880 billion (USD) by 2030. Investing in farming in African can be a lucrative venture.
There is major ground-floor opportunity for businesses in Africa. For the decade ended Dec. 31, 2009, an African composite index made up of eight countries, including South Africa, Nigeria, and Egypt, returned about 14 percent annualized. South Africa alone returned an average of 13 percent per year over that period. Compare that with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index (Morgan Stanley Capital International), which returned about 7 percent annualized, or the S&P 500, which lost about 3 percent over the same period.
According to projections from the World Bank, nine of the 15 countries in the world with the highest rate of five-year economic growth are in Africa. Experts estimate that Africa is likely to grow by 4.7 percent over the next five years. Economists expect much slower growth in places like the United States and U.K. over the next few years.
There are a number of well-known companies that are based in Africa, including South African Breweries and telecom company MTN. Africa’s total stock market capitalization now exceeds $1 trillion. A past study by two economists, Paul Collier and Jean-Louis Warnholz, found that from 2002 to 2007, the average annual return on capital of African companies was 65 percent to 70 percent higher than that of comparable companies in China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. That means the African companies were more profitable.
Africa also features about 10 stock exchanges, according to bizcommunity.com. The market capital has risen from $5.5 billion in 1988 to $569 billion in 2005 (excluding South Africa). In addition, small investors are able to access Africa’s growth potential through the T. Rowe Price Africa and Middle East Fund (nasdaq: TRAMX), launched in September 2007. The SPDR S&P Emerging Middle East & Africa (nyse: GAF) exchange-traded fund is another option, according to John H. Christy’s commentary on Forbes.com.
A good sign that there is a significant amount of wealth that can be made in Africa is the new scramble for the resources on the continent. Currently, China, Japan, the United States and other countries are positioning strategically to extract the resources from Africa.
For instance, many Chinese companies—some of which are backed by the government—have made significant investments in the Congo and other parts of Africa. The Chinese government have realized that it’s going to need resources from Africa to fund its growth, its consumption in the future and to make it a wealthier and more powerful nation.
IVM First car manufacturing company in Africa. Nigeria.
As people begin to make more money in Africa, domestic demand is set to rise. Consumer spending for goods and services in sectors like telecommunications/Internet services, transportation, wholesale and retail is increasing. Africa’s consumption has grown by $250 billion since 2000, according to the Global Insight United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, McKinsey Global Institute. Estimates show that 85 million African households earned $5,000 (USD) or more in 2008. The numbers of households with discretionary income is projected to rise by 50 percent until 2018, reaching 128 million. By 2030, the continent’s top cities could have a spending power of $ 1.3 trillion. African households spent $860 billion in 2008. And African consumers as a class will spend about $1.4 trillion in 2020.
Ethiopia, among other African nations, offers significant tax incentives for import of investment capital goods. According to the Ethiopian Embassy, there is a 100 percent exemption on importing investment capital goods like plant machinery and construction material into the country. Also, products developed in Ethiopia are exempt from export tax.
Helping Africa meet its electricity needs can be the light at the end of the tunnel for small investment opportunities that have long-term benefits. Infrastructure development projects are usually the type of investment opportunities reserved for big, institutional investors and project finance endeavors; however, Africa’s need for electricity is so deep that even smaller investors can offer solutions, albeit, on a much smaller scale. There are a lot of rural communities in Africa that are far removed from electrical grids. Individual systems, small geothermal plants, or diesel generators can be supplied to these communities under carefully crafted arrangements that can turn a profit for the investor/provider.
The surge of renewable energy offers investment opportunities in Africa for small investors and small to medium-size businesses. Renewable sources of energy can be modular in their production and delivery; Africa is blessed with an array of renewable sources of energy like wind and solar.
Sources:
http://money.usnews.com
http://myafricanplan.com
http://www.ventures-africa.com
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