DOING BUSINESS IN AFRICA

No condition is permanent! It is interesting to see nowadays that Africa has become a

sought of New Bride in the eye of the world. The reason is simple to guess and easy to
see: youthful population with an average age of 19 years compared to Europe with an
average age of 45 years. The labour force for the future is surely in excess in Africa. Huge
investment potentials in almost all sectors like health, power, tourism, education,
infrastructure etc. and a large market to absorb production. Abundant and unexplored
raw/natural resources ranging from natural gas, petroleum, tin, gold, diamond to
limestone. Any direction one turns to whether in the east, north, south or west, beautiful
sceneries, fertile land and nice weather to sustain production all year round are in no
short supply.
Africa is fast changing positively and every astute businessman has realized that it is the
continent of the future! One key signal to this change is the way the continent, especially
Sub Saharan Africa has been able to jump one stage of development to catch up with the
rest of the world no matter how small the proportion is for now. What am I talking
about? Your guess is right - mobile phone technology adoption! Africa has been able to
adopt digital and sophisticated technology and use it to empower her teeming populace.
Services like mobile health, money etc. successfully deployed in places like Kenya
(Ushahidi) and a host of other mobile innovations attest to this fact. No wonder almost
all renowned tabloids in recent years have repeatedly given Africa attention on their
front pages. Some of the interesting write-ups about Africa by the famous Time
magazine includes China goes to Africa, Africa, Business Destination and many
more.
In October 2013, The Harvard Business Review magazine published an article tagged
Vision Statement: Seven Reasons Why Africas Time Is Now. According to Jonathan
Berman, the writer, and I quote him Africas economy is growing faster than the
economies of all other continents. About a third of the 54 African countries are seeing
annual GDP growth of more than 6%. But this isnt just about diamonds and oil: Only
24% of the growth from 2000 to 2008 was attributable to natural resources. Whats
making this diverse and complex continent boom? Here are some surprising facts
about Africas $2 trillion economy. He continued as follows:
1. It's a huge market opportunity.
2. It's increasingly stable.
3. Intra-African Trade is in its infancy.
4. It will soon have the world's largest workforce.
5. 20% of government spending goes to education.

6. Mobile is exploding.
7. It contains most of the world's uncultivated cropland.
All the right indices that signifies Africas readiness to move forward have been well
publicized and the early starters have already hit the ground and running. Why wait any
longer? This is the time to carve a niche in any sector or country of interest. I know the
late arrivals would hide behind excuses like security and power shortages etc. The
response to them is you have the yam and the knife. Cut as you wish. I used this
African proverb to answer the question and the message is simply make yourself feel at
home as much as possible and create the kind of environment you desire. There is no
limit to how much you can take! Thank you.