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July 2010

Vol 3 N0 9

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures
Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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Nigeria NIGERIA | CHINA | INDIA

Beijing gazumps New Delhi

China's state companies advance billion-dollar oil and banking deals while India's plans are now on hold

NIGERIA | CHINA

Telecom troubles

Plans to sell the state-owned Nigeria Telecommunications (Nitel) have floundered after China Unicom announced it would ...

SUDAN | CHINA

Oil - after independence

China's oil interests in Sudan will come under heavy scrutiny again as Khartoum and Juba start negotiations on sharing ...

BLUE NOTES

Close

Eastern and Western companies share a common view on economic developments in Africa – that there is now a clear and sustainable upward trend. Last month, China Mobile, HSBC and the Carlyle Group announced plans to seize commercial opportunities, while London’s Chatham House think-tank warned Western policymakers to reorientate their Africa policy away from ‘the crisis continent’ to take account of the massive investment that it was attracting from Asia. Japanese and Singaporean companies are trying to catch up with China and India. In mid-July, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation declared its intent to buy South African IT company Dimension Data for $3.2 billion, its biggest commercial deal yet. Singapore hosted the inaugural Africa-Singapore Business Forum on 15-16 July. Singapore now wants to widen its influence in Africa and double its $3.5 bn. in investment over the next five years. So the government has formed the African Business Group, which it hopes will have 200 members by 2011. Sovereign wealth fund Temasek is leading the way for the island’s private sector: it invested $100 million in South Africa’s Platmin in May and expressed an interest in Jupiter Mines’ Tshipi manganese mine in July.

SUDAN | CHINA

Balancing act

When asked about the 12 July reinstatement by the International Criminal Court of genocide charges against Sudanese President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang did not mention the ICC warrant but said that 'positive progress is being made in the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the Darfur issue is improving.' Rather than persist with the argument that the arrest warrants are a threat to peace in Sudan, the Foreign Ministry said, 'We hope that relevant institutions...play a constructive role in realising lasting peace and stability in Sudan and the region.'

GUINEA | CHINA

And the winner is...the CIF

The continuing power of Mines Minister Mahmoud Thiam and the prospect that he will wield influence after the second round of the presidential elections next month is good news for the China International Fund's multibillion iron ore mining deal. Yet many industry experts still doubt the capacity of CIF and its Australian partner, Bellzone, to raise the necessary finance for the project (AAC Vol 3 No 8). Neither of the candidates in the second round Cellou Dalein Diallo or Alpha Condé - have committed categorically either to retaining or scrapping the deals. Yet it is clear that CIF is in a better position than most to protect its interests in Guinea having built up a powerful web of local protectors.The joint venture, Kalia Horizons Minerals, gives CIF exclusive rights to develop the infrastructure linking the port of Matakan by rail to Faranah, near Bellzone's deposits at Kalia, and would if built represent the first part of the trans-Guinea railway for which successive Guinean regimes have long wished.

GUINEA | CHINA

CIF sitting pretty in Guinea

As one of the anchors in the proposed trans-Guinea railway, the China International Fund may consider its position in Guinea unassailable. However, the Bellzone/CIF deal is already persuading other companies that investing in Guinea's mines is a good proposition. Anglo-African Minerals said that its 8 July decision to acquire a 67.5% stake in Tougué Bauxite and Alumina Corporation, which has an exploration licence for an area that contains at least one billion tonnes of bauxite, was in part related to the trans-Guinea railway development.

AFRICA | JAPAN

A whale's tale

National pride comes before a fall. Reports that Tokyo has routinely bribed at least six African countries to vote in support of its whaling policy have embarrassed the Japanese government. This follows the 21-25 June meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Agadir, Morrocco, which ended in deadlock, thus allowing the hunting of the endangered species to continue.

AFRICA | JAPAN

Fishing for votes

Environmental campaigners such as Greenpeace have long protested about the links between voting at the International Whaling Commission and Japanese aid. That was before evidence that Japanese activities, including the paying of travel expenses and pocket money for IWC commissioners, had come to light.

MALAWI | CHINA | TAIWAN | BRIEFING

Changing sides with profit

Malawi has profitably switched its allegiance to China from Taiwan with a price tag of over US$350 million. In the past two years, China has taken over road and building projects from Taiwan and added more soft loans. Lilongwe's official relationship with Beijing began in January 2008 with the unceremonious dumping of a 41-year relationship with Taipei. The announcement was made while Taiwanese Foreign Minister James Huang was already in the air en route to Malawi.

CONGO-KINSHASA | INDIA | BRIEFING

Take the diamonds and run

A fly-by-night Indian company registered in Hong Kong has packed its bags and disappeared after mining diamonds and not paying taxes for more than four years. Kasaï Oriental's Direction Provinciale des Recettes (DPR) and the parastatal diamond mining company Société Minière de Bakwanga (MIBA) are struggling to hold the Société Minière du Sankuru to account and have since seized company property in an attempt to collect back taxes, but the SMDS executives are long gone. SMDS is a joint venture between the Indian-owned Indo Afrique Mining, which holds a 51% stake, and MIBA, which has 49%. SMDS is represented by an Indian national, Hiren Bhanu.

BLUE NOTES

Eastern and Western companies share a common view on economic developments in Africa – that there is now a clear and sustainable upward trend. Last month, China Mobile, HSBC and the Carlyle Group announced plans to seize co...

Read more

ANGOLA | TANZANIA | CHINA | BRIEFING

Choose your poison

The shadowy joint venture between Angola's state-owned oil company and the nebulous China International Fund has reached a new stumbling block in its three-year-old pursuit of a major stake in Tanzania's national airline. Infrastructure Minister Shukuru Kawambwa announced on 29 June that negotiations with China Sonangol had reached a stalemate over Air Tanzania Corporation Limited's (ATCL) debt obligations and that the government would have to look elsewhere. Yet sources at the talks tell Africa-Asia Confidential that the two sides are actually very close to signing a deal and that Kawambwa's statement was simply a final show of dissatisfaction. Formed after the breakup of the East African Community in 1977, Air Tanzania has struggled ever since. Its performance is far behind that of Tanzania's privately-owned Precision Air, which has teamed up with Kenya Airways in a code-sharing deal.



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