 |
March 2008
Vol 1 - Number 5 |
||
| Headlines
from the latest issue. Want to see more? Email nadia@africa-confidential.com
for a free
sample copy |
|||
|
Cementing new relations An ambitious new African-Chinese partnership could fuel the continent's next construction boom Agreements signed this month between Dangote Industries of Nigeria and China's Sinoma International Engineering Company to build 13 cement production lines across Africa at a cost of US$2.8 billion will give the new partners a leading edge over their multinational rivals. Aliko Dangote, Chief Executive of Dangote Industries, confirmed to Africa-Asia Confidential in Abuja that the agreements with Sinoma would amount to China's single biggest private sector deal in Africa. The partnerships are in two phases: the first, worth $1.6 bn. is for Sinoma-Dangote to build six cement production lines in Nigeria and one in Senegal. The production lines will each have a daily capacity of 6,000 tons, Sinoma says. They are due to start operations on a schedule running from 2011-13. The follow-up phase costing $1.17 bn. is to build four cement production lines in Tanzania, Congo-Kinshasa and Ethiopia (each producing 6,000 tons a day) and two lines in Equatorial Guinea and Zambia respectively, producing 3,000 tons daily. |
Headlines
from Vol 1 No 1 Headlines from Vol 1 No 2 Headlines from Vol 1 No 3 Headlines from Vol 1 No 4 SUMMIT SUSPICIONS The Sudan-Asia spotlight is shifting to Japan from China this month. Just as Beijing fears that its links with Khartoum could jeopardise the Olympics, Tokyo also worries that its Khartoum ties may undermine its hosting of the fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Devevelopment on 28-30 May and the Group of 8 summit on 7-9 July. Tokyo's diplomacy looks less sure-footed than that of Beijing's Special Representative for Africa and Darfur, Liu Guijin, who has just completed an African and European tour. Japan's Foreign Minister Masahiko Koumura offered visiting Major General Nafi'e Ali Nafi'e debt relief of US$31 million on Sudan's $24 billion debt in exchange for positive government actions in Darfur. The choice of interlocutor was unfortunate: Maj. Gen. Nafi'e is the Islamist hardliner who heads the government's Darfur programme. As global criticism of Khartoum's Darfur attacks increased, Tokyo faced more scrutiny and considered banning oil imports from Sudan last year. Although it does not have big equity investments in Sudan, Japan is level-pegging with (and sometimes surpassing) China as a customer for Sudanese oil. This does not help Tokyo's campaign for a permament seat on the UN Security Council. WHO'S
WHO: Lee Won-Gul Purnomo Yusgiantoro Nguyen Tan Dung
|
||
| AFRICA |
INDIA Speedy motors miracle Surprising customers and competitors, India's car exports are now beginning to capture Africa's markets After a long courtship India’s biggest car manufacturers are looking for rapid expansion in African markets. Indian vehicle makers are bullish on Africa and engaged in steadily expanding their reach to tap its burgeoning markets and rising economic potential. Gradually expanding their African operations for decades, Mumbai-based passenger and commercial automotive majors Tata and Mahindra want to double their sales by 2015 and establish joint ventures for local manufacture. |
AFRICA | ASIA Single-minded politics Smaller Asian states are expanding relations with Africa, in the wake of China and India A visit from North Korea’s elite and reculsive leadership is rare for any region, especially Africa. On 18 March Kim Yong-nam, President of the Supreme People’s Assembly and North Korea’s effective deputy leader, flew to Uganda, Namibia and Angola to sign trade and defence deals. The discussions in Namibia concern uranium for North Korea’s nuclear programme, and those in Angola were about securing access to Luanda’s oil. The discussions in Uganda would have rung alarm bells with opponents of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s regime. |
||
| WEST AFRICA | JAPAN From Tokyo to Bamako Japan is increasing its visibility in Mali and the rest of Africa in preparation for the TICAD IV and G8 summits Malian President Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT) finally has something to show for his consistent performance as one of Japan’s biggest proponents in Africa with the opening of the Japanese Embassy in Bamako on 7 March. Ambassador to Cape Verde, Gambia, Mauritania and Senegal, Takashi Saito, officially opened the mission, flanked by Mali’s Foreign Minister Moctar Ouane. Bamako became the seat of Japan’s 27th embassy in Africa, putting it on par with Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea as the only other Francophone West African countries to host a Japanese embassy. |
SAO TOME | TAIWAN Changing horses In the latest diplomatic challenge to Taiwan, the tiny Atlantic archipelago is again flirting with Beijing The appointment of a new Prime Minister in São Tomé e Príncipe could herald a reverse for Taiwan, according to regional diplomatic sources, who say political and commercial considerations are pushing the government to consider a switch in relations back to mainland China. Such a move would be the latest setback for Taiwan, which has seen its modest collection of small and impoverished African allies dwindle in the face of a concerted push by Beijing. Malawi in January followed Chad and Senegal in switching allegiances. |
||
| WEST AFRICA | JAPAN West Africa looks east Mali is not the only Francophone West African country courted by Japan. President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal was invited, along with the Presidents of Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania to represent the continent at the Africa section of July's G8 meeting to be hosted by Japan. |
SAO TOME | TAIWAN All politics is international Taiwan's Presidential elections on 22 March have delayed the appointment of Taipei's new ambassadors to Gambia and São Tomé e Príncipe. Taipei may also be waiting to see what comes of China's fresh initiative to re-establish relations with São Tomé, which were broken off in 1997. |
||
| MOZAMBIQUE | INDIA Firing up the coal India needs coal to fire up its growth, freight rates from Australia’s mines have soared, and India’s own coal-mines are crippled by price controls and labour regulations. So importers are looking to Mozambique, where shipping costs are 30% below Australia’s and coal reserves are barely exploited. |
ZAMBIA | CHINA The copper clashes Tension and recriminations continue to mark relations between Zambian workers and Chinese investors, two months after the end of a two-day strike at a US$200 million copper smelting plant. Labour Minister Ronald Mukuma has appointed a team thoroughly to investigate the cause of the riots that followed an industrial action by construction workers at the smelter site. |
||
| NAMIBIA | MALAYSIA Lights off The abrupt closure of the Malaysian textile company Ramatex Group’s operations in Windhoek with a loss of 3,000 jobs in early March has sparked a political row with trades unionists accusing the company of breaking labour laws and environmental despoliation. The case also raises questions about a proposed US$130 million investment by Malaysian companies in Namibia’s mining and pharmaceutical businesses. |
LATIN AMERICA | CHINA Szechwan samba Why are China’s importers of raw materials so interested in Africa rather than other continents, such as Latin America? Latin America’s natural resources are largely controlled by giant companies from the United States – not rivals to be lightly tackled. A review, Mercados Latinoamericanos, has recently tried to find other answers. They indicate that African political responses to Chinese investment could in the long term thwart China’s hopes. |
||