Somalia | Economy and Infrastructure News

[Nina88]

Originally Posted by moemoney

As commodities futures trader in Canada I believe a futures exchange will be beneficial. This will take many years to develop since you have to build storage warehouses all around Somalia and more important gain the trust of the farmers that a new system will work.

The people behind this project aren't capable of launching this into reality.
Its One thing to come of with the idea but to implement it is another task all in its self.

Bang on.

[Xusein]

Power is as valuable as peace
Aug 14th 2012, 17:34 by The Economist online | MOGADISHU



AT THE start of August, a gathering of Somali leaders in Mogadishu, their country's capital, backed a new constitution, paving the way for a new government to be sworn in on the 20th. The vote came shortly after two bombers tried to attack the meeting, so it is not surprising that concerns over the country's fragile recovery focus mainly on politics and security. But Somalia faces another sort of power struggle which may be just as big a brake on development.

The country's lack of electricity has long been a problem. After 20 years of war laid waste to much of the place's infrastructure, it was the private sector that stepped in. A study by the World Bank in 2004, when warlords held sway in most of Somalia, found that local entrepreneurs had discovered a way of getting round the dire lack of a functioning electricity grid, payment system or metering. “They have divided cities into manageable quarters and provide electricity locally using second-hand generators bought in Dubai,” said the report. Households fed up with living in the dark had a range of choices: they could pay for electricity during the day, during the evening, or round the clock. They could even be charged by the lightbulb.

While such ingenuity is commendable, the costs have been exorbitant. A patchwork of diesel generators provides electricity for people who can afford it. Somalia’s warlords and militias have been the chief beneficiaries. The cost has been far out of reach of the poor. And it has been exceptionally bad for business. There is no shortage of entrepreneurs in Mogadishu. But it is difficult to make money without affordable electricity. “Forget about development without it,” says Mohamed Nur, the city’s go-ahead mayor. Government officials and businessman in the capital estimate that a kilowatt of electricity costs $1.35, making it perhaps the most expensive in the world. In neighbouring Kenya it is five times cheaper, in Turkey about ten times, and in the United States about 12 times. The monthly bill for an average Mogadishu household with one electric light and two sockets is more than $100. Mr Nur complains that his monthly bill is $275. His two-bed house, with a fridge and two air-conditioners, is luxurious by the standards of most of his compatriots but would be thought modest in the West.

Now a Norwegian charity is running a pilot project to install 50 solar-powered street lights in the capital, while other donors are watching from a distance to see if that works. Liban Egal, a Somali entrepreneur who grew up in Baltimore in America, has started work with an American-trained chemist to produce bio-diesel from animal fat, which the cattle-herding Somalis normally have in abundance, along with used oil and chemicals. If they can get the mix right, their generators could in theory run on 40 cents a litre of bio-diesel instead of $1.20 for a litre imported fuel.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/baoba...uable_as_peace

Tough conditions though make ingenuity higher. Biodiesel from animal fat that nobody eats anyway could be a good way of using our resources. Somali entrepreneurs are trying to fix the problem.

[Sideway]

The next government should really focus on restoring the electricity grid. $1.35 for a kilowatt is extremely expensive. This alongside roads and ports should be a priority.

[Xusein]

Somali livestock trade booms despite ravages of war
Tuesday, 20 November 2012

The symbolic sacrifice of sheep in accordance with Islam sees orders increase from neighboring countries such as Yemen, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) across the Gulf of Aden.

Up to $250 million is generated from the export of goats, sheep and camels, although the lucrative trade was crippled when Saudi Arabia -- one of the biggest consumers of animals from the Horn of Africa -- imposed a nine-year ban on imports amid fears of an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever.

After the import ban was lifted in 2010, Somalia exported 4.3 million animals to Saudi Arabia and 4.7 million the following year, even though Somalia was experiencing one of its worst droughts on record.

http://english.alarabiya.net/article...20/250835.html

$250m is just the tip of the iceberg on the potential of the livestock trade, this can be potentially worth tens of billions. Somalis need to stop exporting their animals live and start slaughtering them in factories in Somalia, therefore adding value to their exports, creating an industrial base, and adding jobs. Somalia has the potential to be a major global meat exporter if priorities were there.

[ja'far]

HARGEISA, Somalia — To the outsider, haggling for sheep in the livestock market here might look like an elaborate secret handshake.

Two men lay a piece of cloth over their grasped hands and begin negotiating the price in silence, their eyes fixed on one another.

Sequences of squeezes, pinches and clasps of fingers, knuckles and hands — all hidden from public view under the cloth — indicate the buyer’s offer and the seller’s price. Deals worth hundreds or thousands of dollars are concluded quickly, often without exchanging cash. Payments are transferred between mobile phones.

Semi-nomadic animal herding, or pastoralism, is the Somali way. But while it is a cultural practice with deep historical roots, it also may have a place in Somalia’s economic future, helping it emerge from decades of civil war.

“Livestock is what people really know,” said Cyprien Biaou, a livestock coordinator in the Somalia office of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO.

It is already the bedrock of the economy of Somaliland, a breakaway northwestern region of Somalia, which will this year export more than 4 million sheep, goats and camels, accounting for about 80 percent of Somaliland’s $120 million annual budget.

Last month alone, 1.6 million sheep were exported from Somaliland’s port of Berbera to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. They were destined for ritual slaughter, which marks the end of the annual Muslim pilgrimage, the Hajj.

“This Hajj season was really very good,” said Omer Abokor Jama, the deputy port manager in Berbera.

Fat wooden dhows from Oman and Yemen tie up alongside towering steel cargo ships from Saudi Arabia and Egypt at Berbera’s deepwater port. The port’s 650-meter long dock reflects Somalia’s Cold War past: the first 300-meter section was built by the Soviets in the 1960s. When the country switched sides in the 1980s, the US — never to be outdone — built a 350-meter extension.

At the dock, workers unload everything Somaliland cannot produce, which is to say pretty much everything: cars and trucks, shrink-wrapped palettes of fizzy drinks and bottles of mineral water, flour and pasta, petrol and diesel, cement, timber, washing machines and television sets.

They leave with livestock, and not much else. Some of the larger vessels take as many as 100,000 sheep and goats on a single six-day voyage to Jeddah, the biggest market for Somali livestock.

Ali Guled, a government vet in Berbera, said the livestock industry has grown rapidly since 2009, when Gulf States lifted an 11-year ban on the import of Somali animals. Regional governments had feared the spread of Rift Valley Fever, a virus that can pass from animals to humans.

But relative peace and stability allowed Somaliland to establish a quarantine program where animals are inspected and, if necessary, vaccinated before export, giving buyers peace of mind.

The growing trade in livestock has been good for both Somaliland’s economy and for people like Mohamed Aden, a 78-year-old animal trader.

Aden is the chairman of Hargeisa’s livestock market association, and a 20-year veteran of Somalia’s livestock trade. “Livestock is our life,” he said.

Mohamed Musa, a city tax collector, said the market alone accounts for up to 60 percent of the Hargeisa’s entire tax revenues. As in Berbera, traders at the Hargeisa market sold twice the number of sheep and goats during this year’s Hajj season than in the other 11 months of the year combined. The 39,000 sheep and goats exchanged every day during the month earned the government $200,000 in taxes.

One of the biggest livestock traders here is Dhamac Barud, 52, who said he makes $1 million a year from the animal trade. That dwarfs the income he earns from his other businesses, which include a construction company.

Barud buys sheep and goats by the thousands from pastoralist herders along the Ethiopian border for $50 to $70 per animal. He then ships them off to be sold to Arab merchants — “our traditional trading partners,” he said — in Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen for $90 to $100 per animal.

In a bid to increase the value of each animal, the Somaliland Meat Development Association has been established with the support of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. At the association’s office in Hargeisa, discarded camel bones are ground and carved into jewelry. Marrow and fat is boiled to make soap.

Switzera Yussuf Mohamed, the group’s chairwoman and a mother of 11, said the new income was making life easier for her and the 40 other workers.

“So many of us were jobless before. But now we have the opportunity to work, to earn something to live on,” she said.

People give a variety of reasons for the popularity of Somali animals. Some point to the animals themselves: they are “free range and organic,” smaller (“family-sized,” as one man put it), and taste sweeter.

Others say the explanation is more spiritual: that the herders are Muslim like the buyers, or that the Somali sheep is prized because its distinctive black head bears a symbolic connection to the ancient tale of Abraham, who was willing to follow God’s orders in sacrificing his son.

Whatever the reasons, exports are growing and that is good news for Somalia’s struggling economy

Source: GlobalPost

[Northie]

the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors in the Livestock industry are immense.
Primary: export whole livestock
secondary: export processed and semi-processed meats (canned meats, premium cuts, etc). IF we keep our livestock within somalia to be processed we will have millions of animal hides to kick start our leather industry. a multi billion dollar industry we're just giving away because we don't have the foresight to build a simple factory to process meat and leather.
Tertiary: somalis are experts in livestock rearing, we have been doing it for over thousands of years, I'm sure we can lend our services and expertise to groups at a price of course.

[juzme123]

Originally Posted by ja'far

HARGEISA, Somalia — To the outsider, haggling for sheep in the livestock market here might look like an elaborate secret handshake.


Two men lay a piece of cloth over their grasped hands and begin negotiating the price in silence, their eyes fixed on one another.

Sequences of squeezes, pinches and clasps of fingers, knuckles and hands — all hidden from public view under the cloth — indicate the buyer’s offer and the seller’s price. Deals worth hundreds or thousands of dollars are concluded quickly,

Interestingly enough the Japanese also use this form negotiation - exactly the same, with a cloth covering the hands and with each section of the inner part of the finger standing for a value.

[abdihamid]

Coca-Cola plant resumes its production in Somalia
DECEMBER 10, 2012 COMMENTS OFF





Mogadishu-10-12-12 (Shabelle)— In a further sign of security improvement, one of the world’s biggest brand name Coca-Cola has resumed its beverage productions in Mogadishu after six years of closure because of the insecurity which was wrecking havoc the city before the Somali government with a help from African union forces fully secured and put the city under one control.

At a news conference inside the plant in Mogadishu, the manager of Coca-Cola Company in Mogadishu Mr. Mohamed Hassan Awale has told that the plant fully resumes its production and would also launch a new plant which will also produce different beverages.

Mr Awale also told that all stakeholders of the company in Somalia should come up with new shares which they can wire to the banks of Dahabshil and Salama and that the company will have an efficient management.

Coca-Cola plant inMogadishuhas lost 52% during the six years of closure, according to its manager , Mr. Awale.


Coca-Cola plant in Mogadishu


During 2004-2006 Coca-Cola was producing and distributing its different trademark beverages such as Coca, Fanta through out Somalia.

[Xusein]

SOMALIA: Economic development forum to be held in London



London (RBC) Scores of Somali intellectuals, educators, business experts and leaders from Somali-owned community organizations based in the UK are pouring into London for a historical conference which will discuss on the development of Somali economy under the title ‘OPEN FOR BUSSINESS’ that will take place in the West Minister on Monday next week, according a press statement from the conference organizers.

Organized by the United Nations Associations the conference which is the first of its kind ever held in the United Kingdom is slated for Monday December 10 and will run from 10:000 AM to 17:00PM, according to the chairman of white Star Youth Association Dr. Abdi Olad Rage and Ahmed Hersi who chairs the World G18 Somali both members of the conference organizers.

http://www.raxanreeb.com/2012/12/som...eld-in-london/

[juzme123]

Check out this Somali-Danish NGO initiative that aims to increase commercial fishing:

Somali Fair Fishing is a new, independent Danish-Somali NGO. We aim to build commercial fisheries in the Somali waters along with Somali authorities, business and civil society. We want to help prevent Somali piracy in the future by creating legitimate and prosperous ways of living today.

http://www.fairfishing.org/

[Rabban Al Xaawi]

Munaasabad xariga looga jaray shirkad lagu magacaabo Fruit-some oo dhoofin doonta Muuska ka baxa dalkeena ayaa maanta ka dhacday Hotelka Ambassador ee Magaalada Muqdisho.

Shirkaddan ayaa waxa aasaasay 11 xubnood oo aqoonyahanno Soomaaliyeed ah, waxaana qeyb ka ah khubaro ku takhasusay ganacsiga iyo suuq geynta Muuska, Saamileey, beeraleey iyo ganacsatada Muuska Soomaaliyeed.
Tan iyo wixii ka danbeeyay burburkii dowladii hore ee Soomaaliya, beeraleyda Soomaaliyeed ma aysan helin wax dhiiri geliya wax soo saarkooda, waxayna arintaasi keentay in uu hoos u dhac weyn ku yimaado dalagyadii kala duwanaa ee ay beeri jireen.
Cismaan Xayle Caruushe oo ah gudoomiyaha guddiga fulinta ee shirkadda ayaa ka warbixiyay waxyaalaha ku kalifay in ay furaan shirkaddani, isagoona sheegay in ka dib markii ay arkeen baahida uu caalamka u qabo wax-soo-saarka dalka Soomaaliya gaar ahaan Muuska in ay go’aansadeen in lagama maarmaan ay tahay in la helo shirkad ka shaqeysa ka ganacsiga muuska.
Sidoo kale Eng. Xasan Max’ed Faarax oo isna goobta ka aqriyay war-saxaafadeed ay shirkaddu soo saartay ayaa sheegay in shirkadani ay u furan tahay qof walba oo Soomaali ah ayna leeyihiin dad Soomaali ah oo isxilqaamay. “Shirkadda Fruitsome waxay ugu baaqeysaa beeraleyda muuska Soomaaliyeed oo dhan, Qurba-joogta iyo hay’adaha dhaqaalaha in ay gacmaha is qabsadaan oo ay ka qeybqaataan maalgelinta iyo dhoofinta Muuska Soomaaliyeed,” ayuu lagu yiri warsaxaafadeedkii shirkadda.

[Rabban Al Xaawi]

Since Banana's where a major income earner in the past and even during the civil war it is good to see the private sector starting to acclimatise towards an export led regeneration of this important subsector

[A'A]

Farmers who use to own the banana fields had been illegally deprived and forcibly drove out from their fertile lands. Now some armed groups who historically never had a farming land at near river villages has occupied their field illegally and trying to do a business under those speechless people.We want to know if this bogus company does exist,who owned or if they have a legitimate right to do farming as well as harvesting bananas in this disputed area.

[abdihamid]

Originally Posted by A'A

Farmers who use to own the banana fields had been illegally deprived and forcibly drove out from their fertile lands. Now some armed groups who historically never had a farming land at near river villages has occupied their field illegally and trying to do a business under those speechless people.We want to know if this bogus company does exist,who owned or if they have a legitimate right to do farming as well as harvesting bananas in this disputed area.

Go ahead. Give the Kenyans a good b-job and then they can perhaps return the land afweeyne stole to their "rightfull owners". Cheez, afweeyne kids still dreaming from their asses.

[talya]

Originally Posted by abdihamid

Go ahead. Give the Kenyans a good b-job and then they can perhaps return the land afweeyne stole to their "rightfull owners". Cheez, afweeyne kids still dreaming from their asses.

Bro aflagadada waa laga fiican yahay Somali aa wadda nahay ee qof walba fikir kiisa xur ayuu uu yahay waa kuu raaci kartaa ama waa kaa soo horjesan kartaa.caay iyo aflagaado meel nama geyso! waa mahadsan tihiin.

[ja'far]

Originally Posted by talya

Bro aflagadada waa laga fiican yahay Somali aa wadda nahay ee qof walba fikir kiisa xur ayuu uu yahay waa kuu raaci kartaa ama waa kaa soo horjesan kartaa.caay iyo aflagaado meel nama geyso! waa mahadsan tihiin.

+2013

[juzme123]

Well said Talya.

[A'A]

Originally Posted by talya

Bro aflagadada waa laga fiican yahay Somali aa wadda nahay ee qof walba fikir kiisa xur ayuu uu yahay waa kuu raaci kartaa ama waa kaa soo horjesan kartaa.caay iyo aflagaado meel nama geyso! waa mahadsan tihiin.

Thanks Talya.. ain't in position to reply a plebeian person. But I am here to present contemporary the facts that subsist in this present time in Somalia's farming land area .Despite the fact, I was just trying to highlight some contentious issue about what is happening now on there, but in adversely, some individuals doesn't understand or has no clue what I am gesticulating. Again, those people have been victimized since the country's law and order has aborted, and now this fake company had employed them to work their own land as servitude and wanted to benefit their cheap labour from this unlawful practices. I think anyone who thinks this is a lark history, perhaps we can assume that he might be the part of these intrigue schemes and wants to suck the blood of these victim families.

[Rabban Al Xaawi]

Indeed A'A there are immense issues concerning land ownership in the fertile areas of southern Somalia, but I think this neither the place or thread to discuss these issues.
It would be great if you were to start a different topic addressing such issues.

[Rabban Al Xaawi]

Wakaaladda Hargaha iyo Saamaha Dowladda Soomaaliya ayaa maanta shaacisay in magaalada Muqdisho laga sameyn doono goobo loogu talagalay in lagu bireeyo xoolaha nool ee maalin walba magaalada loogu bireeyo si hilibkooda loo isticmaalo.
http://radiomuqdisho.net/wakaaladda-...-lagu-bireeyo/