Press Release: EY states that African Economies are staying the Course, Despite a Relative Economic Slow Down (25.07.2016)

US remains the leading investor into Africa.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, July 25, 2016/APO/ —

• Africa one of the only two regions in the world achieving growth in FDI project numbers over 2015
• Seven percent rise in FDI projects for Africa
• East Africa the biggest gainer, while other key economies recover ground
• US remains the leading investor into Africa

According to EY’s (EY.com) 2016 Africa attractiveness program 2016, Staying the course, despite a relative slow down, Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the fastest growing regions in the world. This is reflected in the foreign direct investment (FDI) levels in 2015, where FDI project numbers increased by seven percent. Although, the capital value of projects was down year-on-year — from US$88.5b in 2014 to US$71.3b in 2015 — this was still higher than the 2010–2014 average of US$68b. Similarly, jobs created were down year-on-year, but, again ahead of the average for 2010–2014.

Ajen Sita, Africa Chief Executive Officer at EY, comments, “Over the past year, global markets have experienced unprecedented volatility. We’ve witnessed the collapse of commodity prices and a number of currencies across Africa, and with reference to the two largest markets, starting with South Africa, we saw GDP growth decline sharply to below one percent and the country averting a credit ratings downgrade; in Nigeria, the slowdown in that economy was impacted further by the decline in the oil price and currency devaluation pressure.”

Sita adds, “The reality is that economic growth across the region is likely to remain slower in coming years than it has been over the past 10 to 15 years, and the main reasons for a relative slowdown are not unique to Africa. In fact, Africa was one of the only two regions in the world in which there was growth in FDI project levels over the past year.”

East Africa closes the FDI gap, with Kenya a big gainer

In 2015, East Africa recorded its highest share of FDI across Africa, achieving 26.3% of total projects. Southern Africa remained the largest investment region on the continent, although projects were down 11.6% from 2014 levels. The West Africa region saw a rebound in FDI projects by 16.2%, and interestingly in 2015, the region became the leading recipient of capital investment on the continent, outpacing Southern Africa.

North Africa experienced 8.5% year-on-year growth in FDI projects. Furthermore, while projects are increasing in North Africa, they are increasing at a much faster rate in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Michael Lalor, EY’s Africa Business Center Leader, adds, “In a context of heightened concerns about economic and political risk across the continent, FDI flows remain robust, and in line with levels we have seen over the past five years. A key factor here is the structural shift in FDI — from a high concentration of source countries and destination markets and sectors, to a far more diverse FDI landscape. As a result, risks and opportunities are being spread much wider, and there is no longer an overdependence on a limited group of investors or sectors to drive FDI performance.”

Historical investors gain strength, new investors emerge

The US retained its position in 2015, as the largest investor in the continent, with 96 investment projects valued at US$6.9b. During 2015, traditional investors such as the UK and France, as well as the UAE and India, also showed renewed interest in Africa.

Investors diversify focus across sectors

Over the past decade, there has been a shift in sector focus in FDI from extractive to consumer-facing industries. Mining and metals, coal, oil and natural gas, which were previously the key sectors attracting major FDI flows, have given way to consumer products and retail (CPR), financial services and technology, media and telecommunications (TMT), accounting for 44.7% of FDI projects in 2015. In 2015, further evidence of sector diversification came through, with business services, automotive, cleantech and life sciences all rising in significance and becoming the likely “next wave” for investors.

Striking a balance between growth, profitability and managing risk

Sita concludes, “Given the growth potential in and relative underdevelopment of many African markets, the primary focus for many companies over the past few years has been on entering new markets, capturing market share and driving revenue growth. A combination of factors — including tightening economic conditions, increasingly well-informed consumers and citizens, intensifying competition, a heightened sense of global geopolitical uncertainty, and shifting priorities from global or regional HQ — is now driving a change in focus toward striking a greater balance between growth, profitability and risk management.”

Press Release: AfricInvest to exit its invesment in Alios Finance S.A. (21.09.2015)

Press Release: Western Union Celebrates its 20th Anniversary in Africa (28.07.2015)

ACCRA, Ghana–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Western Union Company (NYSE:WU, a leader in global payment services, today celebrated its 20^th anniversary in Africa. With over 34,000 locations and connections to millions of bank accounts and mobile wallets in more than 50 countries and territories, across Africa, the Western Union network serves millions of senders and receivers with a choice of 120 currencies.

To celebrate this special milestone, Western Union’s President for Africa, Middle East, Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe and CIS, Jean Claude Farah, in addition to Aida Diarra, Western Union’s Regional Vice President and Head of Africa and other members of the Africa leadership team visited the first agent location at ADB (Agricultural Development Bank) that offered Western Union money transfer services for the first time in Africa in 1995. The WU leadership team also visited Ecobank head office in Accra and marked the occasion with the launch of the Account Based Money Transfer services through ATM in Ghana.

The Western Union 20^th Anniversary celebration in Ghana in Africa, coincides with a speech made by President Barack Obama at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he is quoted saying:

“Today, Africa is one of the fastest-growing regions in the world. Africa’s middle class is projected to grow to more than one billion consumers. With hundreds of millions of mobile phones, surging access to the Internet, Africans are beginning to leapfrog old technologies into new prosperity. Africa is on the move, a new Africa is emerging.”

Western Union is committed to the expansion and development of its pan-African network which provides a critical link to the ever growing African Diaspora living and working in countries around the world.

“More than 30 million Africans live outside their home countries, contributing billions of USD in remittances to their families and communities back home every year¹”, said Jean Claude Farah. “We are very humbled to play a role in helping them move their money as they seek to elevate their economic status, meet emergency needs, support healthcare requirements, contribute to the education of future generations and in many instances build their own small businesses. By moving money for better for 20 years Western is enabling a world of possibilities for Africa and in Africa.”

Aida Diarra added, “Through the work we do we also enable economic activity and job creation. Currently over 155,000 Front Line Associates (FLAs) are employed in our agent network on the African continent. Western Union invests in training these FLAs developing their business, technical and compliance skills.”

In addition to the socio-economic impact that remittances enable, the company also supports philanthropic activities in Africa via the Western Union Foundation which has a long history of giving back to communities across the African continent. It supports organizations that promote economic opportunity and growth for individuals, families and entire communities throughout the region. Since its creation, the Western Union Foundation has committed to $8.703 million in grants and donations to 158 NGOs in more than 40 countries across Africa.

About Western Union

The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU) is a leader in global payment services. Together with its Vigo, Orlandi Valuta, Pago Facil and Western Union Business Solutions branded payment services, Western Union provides consumers and businesses with fast, reliable and convenient ways to send and receive money around the world, to send payments and to purchase money orders. As of March 31, 2015, the Western Union, Vigo and Orlandi Valuta branded services were offered through a combined network of over 500,000 agent locations in 200 countries and territories and over 100,000 ATMs and kiosks. In 2014, The Western Union Company completed 255 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, moving $85 billion of principal between consumers, and 484 million business payments. For more information, visit www.WesternUnion.com.

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¹ IFAD, 2009

WU-G

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150728006647/en/

Western Union Press Contact:
Khalid Baddou, +212 522 42 84 02
Khalid.Baddou@westernunion.com

Professor PLO Lumumba on “A pan-African perspective…Decolonising the Mind of Africans” (Youtube-Clip) – (04.11.2014)

Well, I know that I’m as European man, and never the less, I am very moved by this speech! Hope you are as well my brother. If not, I don’t know what gives! Listen to the wise words of Professor PLO Lumumba! Peace! 

(Youtube – Speech) President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe speech at the state visit in South Africa – 8th April 2015

Worth looking and listening to. From the industrialization of diamond industry to the spirit if Cecil John Rhodes and so on!

Robert Mugabe actually said: “We grow for those who want to smoke it!”.

Robert Mugabe said: “We want peaceful elections”. He disscussed the intervention in DRC from the Southern Africa standpoint. This with the fear from the  power struggle of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda in the DRC.

He even said: “As a real dicatator! Yes A dictator who had cut the troath of Ian Smith”. Which he didn’t do. He (Ian Smith) died a natural death.

And so much of more, that you should listen to and get enlighten, and get the vision of President Mugabe today.

Enjoy!

209-06-02-2105: Press release on consultations of Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov in Indonesia (06.02.2015)

Bilateral political consultations were held between Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov and Director-General for American and European Affairs Dian Triansyah Djani at the Indonesian Foreign Ministry. Mr Morgulov also held a meeting with ASEAN Secretary-General Le Luong Minh.

While at the Indonesian Foreign Ministry, the sides discussed, in a friendly atmosphere, the condition and prospects of bilateral relations and opportunities to enhance their cooperation on urgent global and regional issues. They emphasized the need to further consolidate political dialogue, promote economic, trade and investment cooperation, and expand coordination in international affairs while emphasizing multilateral cooperation in the United Nations — and chiefly in resolving the situation in the Middle East and North Africa and countering ISIS.

Mr Minh and Mr Morgulov discussed specific steps for enhancing the practical dialogue and partnership between Russia and ASEAN and joint efforts on creating a new architecture of security and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region.

President Museveni’s speech on 9. October – 52nd Independence day celebration – Theme: Unity, Security, Economy and Regional Integration.

Speech By

H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

President of the Republic of Uganda

On the Occasion of the

52^nd Independence

Anniversary Celebrations

Of Uganda

THEME:  UNITY, PEACE, SECURITY, ECONOMY AND REGIONAL

    INTEGRATION: KEY PILLARS FOR TRUE AND

SUSTAINABLE INDEPENDENCE

 

Kampala – Kololo Airstrip

9^th October, 2014

Your Excellencies the Invited Heads of State and Government;

H.E the Vice President;

The Rt. Honourable Speaker of Parliament;

The Hon. Chief Justice;

The Rt. Hon. Prime Minister;

Honourable Members of Parliament;

Your Excellencies the Ambassadors and High Commissioners;

Distinguished Invited Guests;

Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is with great pleasure and honour that I welcome Your Excellencies and all the distinguished guests to this occasion as we mark 52 years of Uganda’s independence.

I greet you and congratulate you on the 52^nd anniversary of Uganda’s Independence.

As we celebrate this day, the whole of Uganda is peaceful and has been so since we ended the removal of the 40,000 rifles from the cattle-rustlers in Karamoja some six (6) years ago.  Earlier on, in 2005, we had defeated the terrorists of Kony.  This is therefore, the first time in 114 years that the whole of Uganda has been peaceful.  Even, during the time of the British, cattle-rustling in Karamoja, using guns from Turkana and from Ethiopia, was going on.  On account of the strength of the UPDF and the growing strength of the Police Force, this peace will not be disturbed.  Use this peace to create wealth for your families as we have guided you before.

On the side of the economy, it will grow by 6.1% this financial year. Having started from a very low base of US$1.5 billion as the size of GDP in 1986, our GDP will be US$25.3 billion by the end of this financial year.  This economy has been growing (in spite of the bottlenecks of electricity, high transport costs, insecurity in the past), at the rate of 7.3% per annum for the last 28 years.

Now that we have the capacity to address the issue of tarmacking the major roads with our own money (such as the just completed Kampala-Masaka road and many others), some of the electricity dams (big and small) and we continue to benefit from solidarity from friends (such as ADB, World Bank, EU, Japan, Badea, etc) on some of the other roads, our economy will grow much faster. The Chinese are helping us to solve the issue of electricity for some of the hydro-power stations on the Nile and its tributaries and are feverishly working on the building of the Standard Gauge Railway.  The Uganda economy will, therefore, for the first time, get a low-cost base from which to operate.  The sky will be the limit.

As you know, Uganda discovered petroleum and gas in 2006.   It is now 8 years since that time.  We have, finally, agreed with the oil companies on these issues of the refinery, the pipeline and power generation. With more investigations, it is now established that the oil reserves in the 40% of the potential area are 6.5 billion barrels and 499 billion cubic feet of gas.  This is good because this gas can help us to remove oxygen from iron-ore (obutare) so that we develop our steel industry given our considerable iron-ore reserves of over 200 million tonnes already identified so that we stop the importation of steel from very far.  By 2017 our oil will be flowing into the refinery and the pipeline.

Apart from the oil and gas, after the recent survey, we have identified alot of minerals as follows: iron-ore, marble/limestone, gold, uranium, vermiculite, nickel, platinum, chromium, kimberlites (diamond), bentonite, aluminium clays, phosphates, copper, cobalt, wolfram, tin, coltan, rock salt and brine.  Uganda has, therefore, a large base of natural resources that will help us in our development.

As the Government is solving the infrastructure problems, the rural families should take advantage of the deployment of UPDF officers to distribute the planting and breeding materials to get themselves out of subsistence farming and join commercial farming.  I have repeatedly pointed out to you the unacceptability of having only one (1) homestead in a whole parish like Ndangaaro in Rubirizi district of 2,500 homesteads as I found out when I visited that area many years ago or seven (7) families in the parish of Rwengaaju out of 1,500 homesteads being the only ones engaged in commercial farming. I am happy to report that in Ndangaaro parish today, 112 homesteads are engaged in commercial farming out of 2,560 homesteads while in Rwengaaju, 130 homesteads are engaged in commercial farming out of 1,946 homesteads.  This, however, is not enough.  Why should the other thousands of homesteads be spectators (abaloleezi) of commercial farming while only the minority are the only ones engaged in that poverty eradicating activity?

With the involvement of UPDF, I am sure that many more families will get access to planting and breeding materials.  Their role in the former NRA/Fronasa operational areas in the last two seasons has already seen them distribute 11 million seedlings of coffee, 2 million seedlings of tea and 464,135 seedlings of fruits.  This involvement of more families into commercial farming, will boost the volumes of production in the country to unprecedented new levels.  Already, the involvement of UPDF officers in the former war zones has pushed the volume of maize from 1,163 million tonnes per annum to 4,100 million tonnes per annum of maize.

Those increased levels of production must be matched with increased levels of processing and value addition.  Therefore, the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA), the Ministry of Trade and Industries and the Ministry of Agriculture must work in overdrive speed to solve the problem of value addition and processing for the increased production as well as the problem of storing.  We have reactivated Uganda Development Corporation (UDC) to, where unavoidable, to step in and do the processing if the private sector do not show up.

On regional and global matters, you all saw that UPDF, working with the Somali army, liberated a number of Somali towns southwards from Mogadishu, including the Port of Barawe.  It is said, that this is the last Port that the terrorist group, Al-Shabaab, controlled.  Globally, there is alot of suffering in North Africa and the Middle East caused, mainly, by mistakes by certain global players, initially.  These global players are always in cahoots with incapable puppets.  It is that permutation that is, mainly, responsible for these tragedies of human haemorrhage, destruction of social and economic capital and loss of development time in those unfortunate lands.

Serious dialogue is necessary in the world to see how these tragedies can be rolled back and new ones avoided.  Within the under-developed countries themselves, who are the victims of these global mistake makers, the main authors of the tragedies are the ideologically disoriented groups that, instead of working for the legitimate interests of the people, promote sectarianism of religion or tribe; or promote male chauvinism.  In so doing, they tear up society and cause tremendous damage.  Our brothers in Somalia need to evolve the ideology of patriotism and Pan-Africanism so that they re-orient their country into a sustainably positive and progressive direction.  With the building of the Somali army, supported by AMISOM, it is possible to pacify Somalia.

The pushers of the hegmonistic agenda have been misusing the ICC, an institution we initially supported.  In the matter of President Uhuru Kenyatta, the African Union (AU) Assembly of Heads of State resolved that no African sitting President should be summoned by that court.  This resolution was taken to the Security Council where there is no permanent member from Africa.  There are only seasonal members. That group did not see much merit in the collective wisdom of the African leaders; and the court summoned President Kenyatta on the eve of our Summit here.  Was the aim of ICC to disrupt our Summit?  Too bad for them!  Our Summit went on yesterday.  The problems that occurred in Kenya in 2007 and that happen in other African countries are, first and foremost, ideological.  ICC to handle them as just legal matters, is the height level of shallowness.  My view is that, at the next summit, African countries should review their membership of the ICC treaty.  The ICC is turning out not be the value addition product that we had expected it to be.  It is instead, a biased instrument of post-colonial hegemony.

As far as Uganda is concerned, the greater mutual interest with the western countries is trade and tourism.  The total global trade is valued at US$ 101 trillion per year.  The USA accounts for US$16 trillion of this.  The EU accounts for US$17.4 trillion of this.  The two of them, therefore, account for about US$34 trillion of this.  The other US$66 trillion is accounted for by the other countries with China taking US$16 trillion and Africa taking US$2.5 trillion but growing very fast. The USA, EU and Africa need, therefore, to harmonize our long term vision based on mutual benefit and equality.  Our recent meeting in the USA was a good beginning.  It is irresponsible for anybody to mishandle this potentially lucrative relationship.

Finally, a point on public health involving another incident of Marburg here in Uganda, recently, as well as the Ebola which is ravaging West Africa.  These are zoonotic diseases; this means that they are diseases that can go from the human being to the animals and vice-versa.  They are very aggressive and lethal.  Yet, they are easy to stop because, fortunately, they do not go through the air like flu.  They infect by contact.

Therefore, in order not take any chances, I request you to suspend the habit of shaking hands in addition to the measures the Ministry of Health is taking in respect of handling those who are sick or who are suspected to have had contact with the sick or with those who died.  I must also request those communities, especially in the forest zones, who have the customs of eating monkeys and other primates to stop that custom.  Those creatures are relatives of humans.  Moreover, they are the ones that harbor those dangerous viruses ─ Marburg, Ebola, etc. Avoid them please.  Eat the livestock we look after ourselves: cattle, goats, chicken, pigs, etc. as well as plant proteins.  The bats also seem to harbour these viruses.  The Ministry of Veterinary should work out plans to eradicate these dangerous sources of this problem.

The fact that 60% of the infected people survive, means that we can develop a vaccine.  When you get sick, please report to the medical authorities immediately. Infected people have a high chance of surviving if they get medical support of especially rehydration early.   Therefore, prompt reporting is crucial.  As far as the medical staff is concerned, they should always use gloves.

There is also another factor in connection with these repeated outbreaks of Ebola and Marburg.  These viruses have not just emerged.   They have always been there, in the forests.  It is the reckless invasion of the forests by those who break the law of conservation that are provoking these viruses. Therefore, conservation is part of Public Health.  Leave the forests alone for tourism and conservation,

Thank you so much and I wish you success in the next year of Independence.

Yoweri K. Museveni

P R E S I D E N T