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Best and worst countries to do business in Africa [INTERACTIVE]

14K views 74 replies 37 participants last post by  SE9 
#1 ·
Where is the best place to start a business in Africa? There are several factors to consider including reliable electricity and the level of corruption.

Getting down to business in Africa has its challenges. GlobalPost used data from the World Bank's 2011 survey on the easiest and most difficult countries to do business, to show the successes and challenges for entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa.


The small Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius ranked No. 1 in Africa for the best place to do business, ahead of South Africa, where the biggest problem for entrepreneurs is getting electricity.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...orst-countries-do-business-africa-interactive
 
#5 ·
Best and worst countries to do business in Africa

Getting down to business in Africa has its challenges. GlobalPost used data from the World Bank's 2011 survey on the easiest and most difficult countries to do business, to show the successes and challenges for entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa.

The small Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius ranked No. 1 in Africa for the best place to do business, ahead of South Africa, where the biggest problem for entrepreneurs is getting electricity. :wtf:

Chad, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo ranked as the worst countires to do business in the continent. :baaa: Getting credit is the only issue that is not a problem, according to the data.

Nigeria beats the rest of Africa with fastest new company growth despite it having major roadblocks with registering properties and getting electricity, :eek:mg: according to the World Bank.
come on guys. have it out :shifty:
 
#12 ·
With population taken into consideration, Morocco, SA and Kenya are actually ahead of Nigeria.
 
#9 ·
But the fact that you can register your business easily is a a fundamental part of doing business...So in Nigeria's case that means that the red tape is decreasing a good deal, which is good for those on the lower economic levels.

Electricity is a problem but not bad.
 
#11 ·
SA does have nuclear plants but I think production is being outpaced by demand, so blackout are the result.

California in the US relies on power supplies as far as NC, because demand is too high.
 
#15 ·
Not atm, that was the case in 2008 when most of the power plants underwent repairs. Though we do have a very small amount of reserve electricity.
 
#25 ·
South Africa power demand must be huge for them to resort to load shedding. Their power generation is very impressive.
 
#29 · (Edited)
I'm sure SA just fell a little bit more, we have such idiotic leaders.

Good riddance to foreign investors: ANCYL

Durban - South Africa would welcome the flight of foreign investors scared off by nationalisation and expropriation, ANC Youth League deputy president Ronald Lamola said on Friday.

"We are told that investors are going to be scared away when we speak about the economy. Good riddance. South Africans will take over."

Lamola made the comments as he addressed the ninth national congress of the National Union of Metal Workers of SA (Numsa).

Land invasions

Lamola came under fire over comments he made on Tuesday that if white South Africans did not hand land over to poor blacks, there could be land invasions like those that took place in Zimbabwe.

He reiterated his call for section 25 of the Constitution to be amended, saying it was an impediment to the nationalisation of mines and the expropriation of land.

The call to nationalise was no different to the British government's 2008 acquisition of the majority of the shares of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

To thunderous applause Lamola told the delegates that the SA Constitution "was ours" and that "we brought it here".

Doesn't scare people

"The ANC must never apologise for wanting to amend the Constitution. We brought the Constitution to South Africa. It's ours. If there is an impediment, we must amend it."

A constitution that was praised around the world was no good if the majority of South Africans were living in squalor.

He said detractors' comments that ANCYL nationalisation and land expropriation calls would result in a Zimbabwe-like situation was not something that scared people who were living in extreme poverty in townships like Alexandra.

Referring to metal workers, he said that their professions were being controlled by whites.

"All the professions are controlled by the white man. This must come to an end. The state must intervene."

He said blacks had been admitted to the professions "for the sake of compliance", which was "a cosmetic exercise".

- SAPA
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Good-riddance-to-foreign-investors-ANCYL-20120608

There is no hope.
 
#33 ·
#30 ·
^^ basing your view on the constantly idiotic and condenmed views of the ancyl and numsa...they are even told they have no clue by cosatu.... is hardly damning. these guys will forever talk like this, doesnt mean people are listening or caring...except for the papers which love to incite this fear.
 
#44 ·
North African countries have close to 100% electrification rates (both rural and urban), and Morocco is pretty agressive in renewable energy projects, this is common knowledge, no need to argue. I used to work with Areva T&D (now Alstom Grid) on electrification projects in Africa and the difference between N. Africa and SSA was and is still as stark as night and day.
 
#55 ·
#56 ·
lydon south africa have black out, and have old infrastructure. the investors look if there is enough energy around and in south africa there is black out now and then.

look at the internet and the telecomunication infrastructure, i don't understund why you think that you have the best position to attract investment in Africa ?.

South Africa Lags Behind With Internet Access
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June 04, 2012

JOHANNESBURG - A new study indicates Internet penetration in South Africa - Africa’s strongest economy - is low compared to other leading economies on the continent. A new study looks at why.

South Africa is the economic powerhouse on the African continent. Yet, Internet penetration here is not as high as it should be, because of the high cost of broadband and a lack of infrastructure.

With a population of around 50 million people, the country had just 8.5 million active Internet users in 2011. That is up from 6.8 million in the previous year. The growth - mainly attributed to smartphones - brings Internet penetration in South Africa to approximately 17 percent, according to a study commissioned by Google South Africa. It was carried out by Arthur Goldstuck, from World Wide Worx.

"The study that we conducted with Google was intended to measure the size of the Internet economy in South Africa," he said. "And, the figure we came up with was R59 billion [$7 billion ] as the value of that economy. And, we then equated it to a sector of the economy in terms of impact of GDP [gross domestic product]. And, the percentage we came up with, was 2 percent of GDP. So the Internet economy in SA represents 2 percent of South Africa’s GDP."

Lagging behind

Despite the growth, South Africa lags behind other African countries, like Nigeria, which has the continent’s highest Internet penetration, at 29 percent. Goldstuck says Kenya and North African countries also are ahead of South Africa.

"There are two major differences between the countries that are ahead of South Africa and South Africa itself," he said. "The one is cell phone penetration and the use of the Internet on cell phones. So, if you look at Egypt and Nigeria in particular, it’s purely a function of their population size. So, as that population embraces cell phones and then the Internet on cell phones, it’s natural that their connectivity base would shoot ahead of SA’s. … The truth of the matter is that the quality of their Internet access is far poorer than your average South African user’s."

Goldstuck says governments’ attitudes towards the importance of Internet access, plays a big role.

"… particularly in countries like Morocco and Tunisia you see it at play, also Indian ocean islands like Mauritius, you see a far greater eagerness from regulators and government itself to have technologies rolled out, to bring communications to the widest possible range of people, as opposed to looking after vested interests. And, it’s those vested interests, or policy interests, that tend to hold us back. It becomes a political process, instead of a technology and licensing process," said Goldstuck.

Vital for small businesses

Goldstuck adds that one of the most significant findings of the study showed that 20 percent of formal, registered small and medium enterprises cannot exist without their websites.

"We measured the impact of Internet use on small businesses and we were able to show that something like 410,000 small businesses have got websites in SA. And, of those, 150,000 wouldn’t be able to exist as businesses, without those websites. So that gave us a very important insight into the impact of the Internet economy on small businesses and on employment in this country," he said.

With the importance of Internet access to small businesses highlighted, Goldstuck says a number of recommendations have been made to the South African government on how to possibly boost the country’s Internet economy.

"The single most important recommendation we’ve made to government is to speed up the regulatory process," he said.

Currently, just 9.6 percent of residents on the African continent are web-active, compared to 65 percent of those living in Europe.

The arrival of an undersea fiber-optic cable, which has about 11 landing points in Africa is expected to address some of Africans’ Internet access woes.
 
#57 ·
Some oasis logic, Lyndon wants Morocco to generate as much electricity as South Africa before he can compare the two! Why would morocco invest all that money to generate power that it needs not?
 
#58 ·
look at who attract the best investers in Africa. this year we have a new investment in a automotive plant with a 1 billion $ investment with the production of 400 000 cars a year, add to that the Bombardier that will invest in building plains in Morocco. in addition, to the signature of the plant for alstom to produce trams and trains... this is just to high light the biggest investment in industry that Morocco attracted while in competition whith turkey for the bombardier project for example. so the competition is global and there is no gateway to Africa.

this is an article from last week, about the birth and the history of the aeronautic industry in Morocco.

Morocco’s Success in the Aerospace Industry


The Wall Street Journal ran a very interesting piece today on Morocco’s success in developing its aerospace industry.

The story should inspire and give hope to many developing countries. It proves that advanced manufacturing is not totally out of the realm of possibilities for these countries. Manufacturing is generally not a big part of the economies of many developing countries – that tend to rely on agriculture, extraction of mineral resources, or light and basic manufacturing. Morocco is not the first developing country to foray into a sophisticated industry such as commercial aeronautics. The WSJ mentions, as prior examples, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa. Brazil is probably the most successful example, with its aircraft maker Embraer.

This story, as the story of Intel’s investment in Costa Rica in 1998, also shows what a powerful ‘game-changer’ foreign direct investment (FDI) can be. In the case of Morocco, there was clearly a strong resolve and policy drive by the Government, but it is FDI that helped achieve what probably appeared to many observers as a very ambitious, not to say utopic, objective a decade ago, bringing capital, technology, skills-building and market access. Over the past 10 years the country has managed to attract significant investments from aerospace leaders such as Boeing, Safran, United Technologies and Bombardier.

What is also interesting in the case of Morocco is that the success story started with a relatively modest operation. Around 1999-2001, Royal Air Maroc, the national carrier, managed to convince Boeing (a long-time supplier of RAM) to partner with it and a French electrical wiring company to start a small project preparing cables for Boeing 737 airplanes. The level of quality achieved by workers surprised everyone and…the rest is history.

The sector now employs almost 10,000 workers who earn about 15% more than the average monthly wage (which remains relatively low for Western standards at US$320/month). As the WSJ correctly points out, creating jobs is a strategic imperative for the stability of the country, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Morocco remains deeply affected by high unemployment, particularly in the young segments of the population.

In my line of work, I am well aware that there is much more to say in order to explain why Morocco succeded and why replicating this success story will be very difficult for many other developing economies, but as a development professional working on private sector development, I found the piece very interesting and encouraging and wanted to share it with you.
 
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