The second edition of the annual Africa 2017, a high-level forum offering participants an unparalleled platform for promoting trade and investment within Africa, will take place on December 7-9, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, the organisers announced yesterday. This year’s event will kick-off with a Young Entrepreneurs Day (YED), which will bring together emerging and established entrepreneurs, business mentors, start-up hubs, angel investors and venture capital firms to share ideas, network and help drive further the “business ideas of tomorrow”. According to the organisers, the Africa 2017 YED has partnered with top incubators, entrepreneurship programmes and venture capital firms. Organised by Egypt’s Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation of Egypt and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Regional Investment Agency, the three-day conference will discuss key issues like ploicy reforms to improve business and investment climate, among others. It will attract business leaders and policy-makers from across Africa and worldwide, including Heads of State, the statement said. The forum will be held under the patronage of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Dr Sahar Nasr, Egypt’s Minister of Investment and International Cooperation, reiterated the African opportunity based on business-minded reforms taking place across the continent. “The forum seeks to stimulate investments into the continent, and especially cross-border investments. In Egypt, we have undertaken an ambitious economic reform programme, with improving the business environment and overall country competitiveness as the key ingredient,” Nasr said. This forum reinforces Egypt’s commitment to support and enhance the economic and cultural integration of Africa...

Regional private equity fund Aureos East Africa Fund LLC has started the process of exiting its investments in East Africa. The fund which was established by Aureos Capital in 2003, had made several investments in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Its key sectors included banking, manufacturing, tourism, advertising, wholesale and retail. Recently, the fund which is managed by the Abraaj Group announced that it had entered into an agreement to sell its entire 5.53 per cent (6.83 million shares) stake in the clothing retailer Deacons East Africa Plc. The value of the transactions is yet to be made public but conservative estimates based on the current  market value of the company’s stock on the Nairobi Securities Exchange puts the price  at around  Ksh24 million ($240,000). The share sell-purchase transaction which is still subject to regulatory approval will be executed off the NSE as a private transaction. The fund has also invested in the cement firm Athi River Mining, Bank of Africa, Athi River Steel Plant, Cable Holdings Ltd, Dorini (Tourism) and advertising firm Ovidian. In Uganda and Tanzania, the fund has invested in the Bank of Africa (Uganda) and Bank of Africa (Tanzania). The $40 million fund is incorporated in Mauritius and seeks to make equity and quasi-equity investments in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with strong potential for profitable growth and regional expansion. Aureos seeks to invest in East Africa with a focus on Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, with investments of between $0.5 million and $4 million per transaction. It holds its investments for...

Five years ago, a season like this, John Losunyen was queuing for relief food somewhere in Isiolo county , in the central part of northeastern Kenya. Luckily, today, that is not the case as he is currently tending to his tomatoes on a two and a half acre farm where he also rears poultry and keeps cows. With training and the use of mobile phone technology to access markets and get farming information, Mr Losunyen has been able to fend for his family. The use of mobile phone applications in agriculture is changing lives by providing crucial and handy information which farmers are using to boost the productivity of many farmers across the region. Data shows that demand for food is set to grow as the global population increases, more people live better lives as their economic situations and standards of living improve, couple with increased urbanisation. There is a need to innovate to feed this population and one of the market leaders in innovation in agriculture is a United States global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future, which come with advancements that are immensely changing the lives of farmers in East Africa. iProcure From technological innovations, like iProcure Ltd, smallholder farmers are able to get quality inputs for better productivity. Through the last mile distribution of farming inputs, iProcure is a digital platform through which farmers can order for inputs and have them delivered through co-operatives to ensure that they get genuine and affordable inputs. iprocure’s ojective...

Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd plans to build a mineral processing plant in Kabezi district, 10 km south of Bujumbura, the capital city of Burundi. The $1.5 million rare earth element (REE) plant will be about 20 km from Gakara mine, which was set up by the London Stock Exchange-listed firm that raised $8 million by listing 65 million shares in order to fast-track production in fourth quarter of 2017. Rainbow said the processing site has an asphalt road that will ease collection of the rare earth concentrate by container trucks for export either through the Mombasa or Dar es Salaam ports. Sales of ores by the end of 2017 to ThyssenKrupp Metallurgical Products of Germany will mean Burundi becomes a producer of REEs ahead of Kenya and Tanzania which have also discovered these much sought after minerals. Demand for rare earth elements in the global market is increasing due to rising usage of powerful magnets used for electric vehicles, motors and wind turbines. Highest concentration The Ngualla rare earth deposit licensed to Peak Resources Ltd near Mbeya, Tanzania, has a capital expenditure of about $206 million. Pacific Wildcat Resources Corporation in 2013 announced discovery of rare earth deposits valued at $62.4 billion in Kenya’s Coastal Kwale County. Rainbow’s chief executive officer Martin Eales said they have completed re-routing an existing lane from the rare earth elements plant processing site in Kabezi to allow the local people to get access to the Lake Tanganyika shore and fishing vessels. Mr Eales said...

Kenya’s effort to seal loopholes for dumping and tax leakage have run into legal headwinds after local firms moved to court to block the joint deal with Uganda and Rwanda. The firms which offer cargo tracking services in Kenya have sued seeking to block the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) from implementing its e-tracking system in partnership with the two landlocked neighbours. The nine firms through the Electronic Cargo Tracking System Providers Association of Kenya claim that the KRA has stabbed them in the back by introducing the Regional Electronic Tracking System (Rects) which is already on a pilot phase in Kenya. The platform, launched by the KRA in March, allows the real-time tracking of cargo from Mombasa to its final destination. The new system will allow Uganda and Rwanda’s tax collection organs to also monitor the cargo. The KRA in March announced that the new cargo tracking system would be offered to transporters for free, a move that has sparked the vicious war with firms currently providing the monitoring services at a fee. The taxman in its response says that the system’s introduction was necessary to reduce dumping and diversion of goods in transit, give the taxman more control over data of cargo being transported and to reduce paperwork while maximising use of technology. But the lobby group says the KRA in February assured its members that the new regional system would only be used occasionally for arming sensitive cargo, and even invited it to the launch of the platform....

Negotiations for the creation of the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) will be finalised at the end of October. The TFTA brings together 26 countries— partner states of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community. The TFTA Council of Ministers, in their recent meeting held in Kampala on July 7, set a new timeframe of three months to clear outstanding issues, especially on tariffs and ratification of the agreement by the member countries. At the launch of the TFTA on June 10, 2015 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, the heads of state set a timeframe of 12 months for finalising the negotiations, but by October 2016, there were outstanding issues, prompting the ministers extend the deadline to April 2017. That, too, was missed. Now, Francis Mangeni, director of Trade and Customs at Comesa, says the October 30 deadline must be met, as the TFTA faces an existential risk from the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) expected to be launched by the end of the year. “Some countries argue that with the 55-member CFTA, the TFTA is unnecessary,” said Dr Mangeni. “Besides, they add, the TFTA is not as ambitious as the CFTA.” At the Kampala meeting, the ministers agreed on the rules of origin, trade remedies and dispute settlement mechanisms. “The adoption of these three outstanding issues represented a milestone in the tripartite negotiations, as it removed the last obstacle to signing and ratifying the agreement,” Dr Mangeni said....

The cost of the August 8 General Election on Kenya’s economy has started to emerge, with firms scaling down production, investors holding on to their cash and neighbouring countries redirecting their cargo to Tanzanian ports, away from Mombasa. Foreign governments, especially in the West, driven by uncertainty, have stepped up travel advisories to their citizens in the country and those intending to visit, warning that “in the past, some political protests, rallies and demonstrations have turned violent.” International organisations whose business is outside the provision of humanitarian services and foreign firms have given their staff permission to leave for neighbouring countries a week before and stay until a week after the elections, citing uncertainty over the poll, whose main contenders are Jubilee’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and National Super Alliance’s Raila Odinga. GRIM PICTURE Sources in the business community who sought anonymity for fear of being seen to be painting a grim picture over the elections said a majority of companies had scaled down production, while investors are holding onto their finances awaiting the outcome of the elections. They were particular that banks, which are normally hard hit with uncertainty, had limited the amount of loans lent to individuals until after the elections, with one of the sources saying they were lending out a maximum of Sh5 million. However, businessman Vimal Shah played down fears within the business community, saying: “So far, so good. I don’t know of any business that has suffered as a result of the election fever. People...

Was the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act a poisoned chalice from the United States of America? It appeared so after the US allowed a petition that could see Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda lose their unlimited opening to its market. This follows the US Trade Representative assenting last week to an appeal by Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association, a used clothes lobby, for a review of the three countries’ duty-free, quota-free access to the country for their resolve to ban importation of used clothes. The US just happens to be the biggest source of used clothes sold in the world. Some of the clothes are recycled in countries like Canada and Thailand before being shipped to markets mostly in the developing world. In East Africa, up to $125 million is spent on used clothes annually, a fifth of them imported directly from the US and the bulk from trans-shippers including Canada, India, the UAE, Pakistan, Honduras and Mexico. The East Africa imports account for 22 per cent of used clothes sold in Africa. Suspending the three countries from the 2000 trade affirmation would leave them short of $230 million in foreign exchange that they earn from exports to the US. That would worsen the trade balance, which is already $80 million in favour of the US. In trade disputes, numbers do not tell the whole story. Agoa now appears to have been caught up in the nationalism sweeping across the developed world and Trumponomics. US lobbies have been pushing for tough...

Kenya has emerged as the continent’s trailblazer in championing women’s representation in top management of companies, despite failing to attain the constitutional one-third gender requirement. A report by the Kenya Institute of Management (KIM) and the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) shows that listed multinationals fared better than indigenous firms in women representation on boards, at 27 per cent, against 20 per cent. The number of women in boards rose to 21 per cent this year, from 18 per cent in 2015 and 12 per cent five years ago. “The number of women heading boards remains low, with just five of the 52 (out of 62) listed companies that responded in the survey headed by a woman, similar to what it was five years ago. We also note that like in the boardroom, women representation in senior management was a quarter, meaning that there is one woman for every four men in the senior management teams,” said KIM chief executive Muriithi Ndegwa. In terms of the average representation on boards of women, Africa came fourth at 13 per cent behind Europe and Australia at 26 per cent and North America at 20 per cent. The ratio was however higher than South America at eight per cent and Asia at nine per cent. NSE chief executive officer Geoffrey Odundo said that the presence of a diverse and inclusive organisation is one of the greatest business catalysts that exist to broaden the talent pipeline, enhance brand and corporate reputation. “For diversity and inclusion...

Investors and organisers of the YouthConnekt Africa Summit that took place in Kigali from July 19-21, aim to raise $60 million to finance innovative projects by young entrepreneurs as part of efforts to create 10 million jobs before 2020. The event, which was organised in collaboration with United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), is in its fifth edition. It brought together 2,500 delegates including heads of states, motivational speakers, celebrities, business leaders, investors, young innovators and development partners. Under the theme From Potential to Success the conference marked the launch of the YouthConnekt Africa Hub and Empowerment Fund that will identify and finance business projects for young entrepreneurs. Baraka Ochieng, programme analyst at UNDP regional office for Africa, told Rwanda Today that YouthConnekt has demonstrated the potential to empower young Africans in different sectors. “As Africa, one of the challenges faced by youth is unemployment, lack of entrepreneurship opportunities; lack of space in decision making within government and leadership. “So this platform provides many opportunities for the youth to be empowered. One of the goals is to create 10 million jobs,” Mr Ochieng said. On the creation of the YouthConnekt Africa Hub and Empowerment Fund, participants will have to agree on a model of outsourcing pledged funds and projects. Projects that promote Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are likely to secure funds from the UNDP. The Empowerment Fund seeks to raise $60 million before 2020 to finance key agendas like creating jobs for more than 10 million people...