MENU

Business
Category

Laughing Cow goes to Africa

25 March 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Featured

laughing cow africa

Bel Group, the third largest cheese-maker in the world increases sales and production on the continent, including a new pre-fabricated factory in Ivory Coast to produce The Laughing Cow cheese.

Bel Group, the world’s third largest cheese-maker and producer of popular The Laughing Cow cheese (La Vache qui Rit), launched a miniaturized production operation in Ivory Coast in an innovative pre-fabricated factory.

The French cheese-maker, which also has production plants in Morocco and Algeria, has found a growing market in Africa, selling more than two billion single-serving portions of Laughing Cow cheese in 2015.

The new plant in Abidjan, which began production in December 2015, was designed, assembled and tested at Bel Group’s research center in Vendome, France before it was shipped as a kit to the Ivory Coast in 14 containers. The factory was constructed “like a Lego,” said Bel CEO Antoine Fievet.

Company miniaturizes production process

Before designing the plant, Bel Group spent three years figuring out how to miniaturize its production process so that it could prefabricate plants as it seeks to grow its local operations in key markets where import processes are expensive or cumbersome.

The Abidjan plant, located in the industrial area of Yopougon, will produce 100,000 portions of cheese daily for sale in Ivory Coast, Bel said. The 4,200-square-meter plant, which cost $3.4 million, can manufacture 20 million cheese servings annually.

Bel patents factory design

“This unique plant once again demonstrates the expertise of Bel in miniaturization and the innovation capacity of our industrial teams,” Hubert Mayet, Bel director general of industrial operations and technology, research and innovation, said.

Mayet said the plant employed 12 people with an expansion to 20 planned for 2016.

Bel will import raw material for producing cheese, Bel said. “If success is to go, we can easily increase the size of the plant and will launch other products,” Fievet said.

Bell called the pre-fabricated factory “unprecedented in the cheese industry. Bel, which has patented the concept out of fear that competitors might copy it, said pre-fabricated factories could soon be deployed in other key market locations.

Plants in Morocco, Algeria

In addition to the new plant in Ivory Coast, Bel employs a total of 3,500 people in factories in North Africa and Egypt. Bel Group also has operations in Turkey and Iran, and the company operated in Syria until civil war broke out.

In Morocco, Bel cheese is the market leader, selling brands including The Laughing Cow, Kiri and the Children.

The company in August 2015 acquired a nearly 70 percent stake in one of Morocco’s largest dairies, Salfilait, which processes and sells fresh milk and dairy products under the brand name Jibal.

Bel Group CEO Antoine Fievet said “Bel is proud of its success in Morocco built with the help of historical local partners. The group welcomes this new partnership with renowned a Moroccan industry and responds fully to its strategic development goal.” He called the two companies “close cousins.”

Tangier plant launched in 1970s

Bel has operated in Morocco since the 1970s with a plant in Tangiers that employs about 1,500 people.

In Algeria, Bel employs about 1,000 people at a production facility in Algiers. It established the operation Bel Algeria operation in 2001.

Bel is the third largest cheese-maker in the word after Lactalis and Kraft.

Founded in 1865 in France, Bel, now headquartered in Paris, has 28 production plants worldwide and distributes its products in 133 countries, including 44 countries in Africa.

laughing cow

400 million customers

According to Bel, 400 million consumers globally partake of its cheeses each year and 10 million portions are consumed each day. In addition to The Laughing Cow, major brands include Kiri, Mini Babybel, Boursin and Leerdammer.

Bell also launched operations in the United States, opening a plant in Brookings, South Dakota with capacity to produce 20,000 tons of cheese a year in order to meet strong U.S. demand for Mini Babybel cheese. Bel Groups sales in the United States increased by 40 percent between 2013 and 2015.

World-wide, the company reported sales of nearly $4 billion in 2014, an increase of more than 20 percent from the year before.

In 2015, Bel reported a revenue increase of nearly 6 percent to nearly $4.2 billion.

International markets accounted for much of that group with increases of 29 percent in the Americas and Asia. Net income increased by 50 percent to $205 million.

Large share of company growth in Africa

Bel said about 63 percent of the company’s growth in volume came from Africa in 2015, which saw an increase in sales of 8 percent on the African continent, generating $475 million in revenue.

The company has operated in Africa for more than 50 years and sees the continent as a further growth area for sales.

”Bel is already a leader in Africa, but the continent still offers numerous untouched markets worth exploring,” the company said.

Read more

South Africa assets soften, investors risk-wary ahead of long weekend

25 March 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South African assets ended a shortened trading week on the backfoot on Thursday, with expectations of higher U.S. interest rates hurting the rand and investors taking no chances before the four-day Easter weekend.

In equities, shares in mobile networks operator MTN blazed the downhill trail, sliding over 10 percent as they traded ex-dividend and on the emergence of new complications in its efforts to cut the size of a hefty fine it faces in Nigeria.

Nigeria’s parliament has launched a probe into whether the telecoms regulator can reduce a fine slapped on MTN for missing a deadline to disconnect unregistered SIM card users, a lawmaker said on Thursday.

The move might complicate efforts by Africa’s biggest cell phone operator to reduce the fine, which had originally amounted to $5.2 billion and was cut by Nigeria’s telecoms regulator to $3.9 billion in December.

Overall, investor appetite for South African assets was dimmed by the prospect of getting caught out ahead of a four-day holiday weekend.

“People don’t want to go into the long weekend holding the rand. There is risk aversion all round but South Africa, including equities, has been hit quite badly,” said Bart Stemmet, an analyst at NKC African Economics.

The benchmark Top-40 index slipped 0.57 percent to 46,349.01 while the wider All-share index declined 0.47 percent to 52,323.78. It was the third straight session that South African stocks ended in the red.

Trade volumes were thinner than usual with around 211 million shares changing hands.

At 1520 GMT, the rand traded at 15.5650 per dollar dollar, 1.33 percent weaker from Wednesday’s New York close of 15.3600. Government bonds were mixed, with the yield for the benchmark instrument due in 2026 flat at 9.37 percent.

 

(Reporting by Ed Stoddard and Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Read more

Egypt bank CEOs purged as central bank sets 9-year term limit

24 March 2016 Comments (0) Business, Latest Updates from Reuters, Middle East

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s central bank put a time limit on the tenures of CEOs of commercial lenders on Thursday, launching a purge of several top executives that puts it on a likely collision course with the country’s banking sector.

To help modernise the sector and “inject new blood”, chief executives of public and private banks as well as the heads of foreign banks operating in Egypt would have to step down after nine years, the central bank said in a statement.

The decision is the latest surprise by Tarek Amer, a central bank governor who has moved aggressively to bring dollars into a banking system starved of foreign currency and slow the rapid fall of the Egyptian pound on the black market.

The black market rate hovered at just below 10 Egyptian pounds to the dollar on Thursday compared with the official rate of 8.78 pounds per dollar.

Amer surprised markets in recent weeks by removing dollar deposit and withdrawal caps, devaluing the currency by 13 percent in a single day, declaring a more flexible exchange rate and injecting hundreds of millions of dollars despite critically low reserves.

The decision to cap CEO terms caused consternation among bankers who described it as an unexpected overreach into the private sector’s affairs.

“It’s going to have very bad consequences,” one senior finance official, who asked to be unnamed, said.

The rule will force eight top executives to resign their positions, a senior banking official told Reuters. They include Commercial International Bank’s Hisham Ezz al-Arab and Arab African International Bank’s Hassan Abdalla.

Shares in CIB were down 1.7 percent at 1126 GMT.

There was no immediate comments from the country’s leading banks on the measure, which drew criticism from Hany Tawik, head of Egypt Private Equity Association, a group that represents business community interests.

“This is interference in an essential right of the general assembly to appoint someone that is best suited for them. It’s my right as a shareholder to choose the head of the bank,” he said.

Others such as Angus Blair, the chief operating officer of Pharos Holding, said the move was positive.

“I like the new rule for bank CEOs since it should foster younger talent and help improve institutionalisation.”

The central bank’s foreign reserves have tumbled to $16.5 billion in February from around $36 billion before the 2011 uprising that ousted long-time leader Hosni Mubarak.

His fall from power and the political unrest that followed drove away tourists and foreign investors that were key sources of foreign currency.

Around 40 public and private sector banks operate in Egypt.

Both consecutive and non-consecutive CEO terms will count towards the nine-year limit, the central bank said.

 

(Reporting by Ehab Farouk; Additional reporting by Mostafa Hashem; Writing by Eric Knecht; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Read more

IMF to resume Malawi loan programme

24 March 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

LILONGWE (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund will resume Malawi’s $150 million extended facility programme which was suspended last year after a scandal involving abuse of state money, the country’s finance minister said on Thursday.

“The IMF has given us a green-light to the resumption of the programme which allows them to disburse about $30 million of the remainder of the total $150 million,” Goodall Gondwe told Reuters.

“The advice we get from the IMF is very important because they provide a very valuable yardstick of how we can manage our economy and we will continue doing well especially on public finance management so that we are not off track again.”

The IMF had suspended the programme following a scandal in which senior government officials siphoned millions of dollars from state coffers. Other international donors, led by Malawi’s former colonial ruler, Britain, also halted direct aid to the southern African nation over the scandal.

IMF Mission Chief Oral Williams said in a statement on Wednesday that Malawi had demonstrated a concerted effort to put the programme back on track, including improvements in public financial management.

Malawi has struggled to grow its economy due to declining export earnings from tobacco and in the absence of aid, which had previously accounted for 40 percent of its budget.

The IMF said it expects Malawi’s economy to grow by 3 to 4 percent this year after expanding by 3 percent in 2015.

But growth may be weather-dependent the Fund said, after an El Nino weather pattern triggered drought and heatwaves, threatening the staple maize and other crops.

 

(Reporting by Mabvuto Banda; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Read more

Egypt’s GASC says seeks wheat for April 25-May 5 shipment

24 March 2016 Comments (0) Business, Latest Updates from Reuters, Middle East

ABU DHABI (Reuters) – Egypt’s General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) set a tender on Wednesday to buy an unspecified amount of wheat from global suppliers for shipment from April 25-May 5.

Mamdouh Abdel Fattah, vice chairman of GASC, said the authority is seeking to buy cargoes of soft and/or milling wheat from the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Poland, Argentina, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Romania.

Tenders should reach GASC by noon local time (1000 GMT) on Thursday. The results should come out after 3:30 p.m. local time on the same day. Wheat bids should be free-on-board, with a separate freight offer.

In its most recent tender on March 16, GASC bought 240,000 tonnes of wheat from France, Romania and Ukraine for April 15-24 shipment.

GASC is seeking to buy 55,000-to-60,000-tonne cargoes of the following:

U.S. North Pacific soft white wheat;

U.S. soft red winter wheat;

Russian milling wheat;

Ukrainian milling wheat, and

Australian standard white wheat.

 

GASC is also seeking 60,000-tonne cargoes of the following:

Canadian soft wheat;

French milling wheat;

German milling wheat;

Argentine bread wheat;

Polish milling wheat;

Kazakh milling wheat, and

Romanian milling wheat.

 

(Reporting by Maha El Dahan in Abu Dhabi, writing by Michael Hirtzer in Chicago; Editing by Chris Reese and Marguerita Choy)

Read more

Egypt supply minister says close to wiping out graft in wheat sector

23 March 2016 Comments (0) Business, Latest Updates from Reuters, Middle East

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s supply minister said the world’s top wheat buyer is close to eradicating graft in its strategic sector, defending the country’s management of the system against criticisms that it is vulnerable to corruption.

He said authorities distribute 6 billion loaves of bread to citizens each month and that a smart card system rolled out in 2014 had virtually ended graft in the system.

Officials, traders and bakers who spoke to Reuters for a March 15 story on the wheat sector said reforms, including the smart card system, had failed and ended up fuelling more corruption.

Challenging the Reuters story, Supply Minister Khaled Hanafi repeated his assertions that the system has saved millions of dollars in bread subsidies, reducing imports, and ended shortages that once prompted long queues outside bakeries across the country.

“We have a system now that counts every single loaf of bread consumed,” he said in an interview.

A Reuters spokeswoman said the news agency stood by its story.

Wheat has become a key issue in recent months because the stability of Egypt’s supply chain has been threatened by an agricultural quarantine official’s zero-tolerance policy on ergot, a common fungus.

The policy caused a mass boycott of state wheat tenders. The quarantine official was removed from his position.

In 2014, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government rolled out a system of smart cards designed to stop unscrupulous bakeries selling government-subsidised flour on the black market.

Corruption had been close to eliminated, Hanafi said in the interview, because the smart card system is effective and allows the ministry to monitor flows of bread.

The stakes are high for Sisi, who has promised to end graft, including irregularities in the wheat industry. Wheat shortages have sparked riots in the past. When Egyptians revolted against autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011 one of their most potent chants was “Bread, freedom and social justice.”

The bread subsidy programme, which feeds tens of millions of poor Egyptians, is central to avoiding unrest.

Under the smart card programme, each family is provided with a plastic card enabling it to buy five small flat loaves of bread per family member a day.

Internal statistics produced by the Ministry of Supply and reviewed by Reuters suggest the problems with the smart card system were considerable.

Hanafi says the system is almost foolproof and that his ministry has kept corruption to a minimum, in contrast to the past, when he says 50 percent of Egypt’s flour supply was stolen.

“We are serving 80 million Egyptians. And we are serving 6 billion loaves of bread per month,” Hanafi said.”Any fraction, any tiny small fraction in absolute figures, could be relatively large. But as a percent it is nothing. It is less than even the normal level of error that exists.”

 

(By Michael Georgy. Editing by Simon Robinson, Veronica Brown and Dale Hudson)

Read more

Japan offers African development aid to counter rival China

23 March 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Featured

Japan Africa

Japan plans to support 60 projects in Africa as preparations get under way for the sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Kenya in August.

Japan plans to provide development aid for 60 projects in Africa as it seeks to take part in the economic growth of the continent while countering the increasing presence of China.

The Japanese commitment is expected to be announced at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Nairobi, Kenya in August. The conference is sponsored by Japan, the United Nations and the African Union.

The total dollar amount of the assistance has not been determined. However, the Japanese aid will focus primarily on infrastructure development in the area around Mombasa port in Kenya, around Nacala port in northern Mozambique, and developments in Ivory Coast and surrounding West African countries.

In addition to port infrastructure and roadwork, the projects include development of an urban transportation network in Nairobi and development of natural gas extraction capabilities in Mozambique.

Program will distribute testing equipment

In Zambia, the Japanese will fund a program to distribute medical testing equipment in the wake of the Ebola outbreak. A student exchange program and a microloan project also are under discussion.

Japan has a history of significant aid and investment in Africa and has been the largest Asian source of investment in the continent.

Japanese development assistance to Africa nearly doubled from $1 billion in 2007 to USD 1.8 billion in 2012. In the private sector, Japanese companies accounted for $3.5 billion in 2014, more than 80 percent of the total private investment from Asian countries.

Japanese investors show interest in Africa

One investment expert says interest from private Japanese investors is growing.

“It is clear there is significant and increasing interest both in terms of the government and the trading houses in looking at Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa in particular. The Japanese see Africa as an important and inevitable market and, as with other emerging markets, it is somewhere that they need to be,” said Andrew Skipper of the London law firm Hogan Lovells.

The Japanese government has encouraged and attempted to facilitate private Japanese investment in Africa. For example, during his 2014 visit to Africa, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was accompanied by trade delegations from his country and pushed the idea of more Japanese private investment in the continent.

At a Japan-African Ministerial Meeting for Resources Development in Tokyo in May,

Yoichi Miyazawa, the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, said the government wanted to take trade with African states “to a new stage.” A government statement added: “Japan aims to expand opportunities to bring about a mid-to-long term stable supply of mineral resources from Africa.”

Competition with China

The meeting also brought into focus the competition among investors from different nations. Martin Kabwelulu Lablio, mining minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, told attendees that China had committed $6 billion in investment in mining and infrastructure. Lablio encouraged Japanese investors to follow suit. “We want Japan to surpass this number,” he said.

As it seeks to raise its profile and its influence in the region, China has stepped up its investment in the continent, mostly through loans from Chinese banks rather than direct aid.

With its need for minerals and to gain footholds in strategic locations for its “one belt, one road” policy of creating trade routes to the West, China has issued a string of announcements about large investments on the continent.

For example, China has announced plans to build a naval base in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti. Other plans, with a price tag of $12.4 billion, include expansion of port facilities, two new airports, as well as a $4 billion rail link with Ethiopia, Djibouti’s land-locked neighbor.

Chinese bank pledges funds

According to one report, China heads the list of state-run development financiers, with the Export-Import Bank of China pledging $1 trillion in the next decade. Chinese institutions are the largest source of funds for infrastructure in Africa, accounting for $13.4 billion in 2013.

In December 2015, China pledged investment of $60 billion in Africa over three years, with most of it in the form of loans or export credits. However, China’s investment in Africa also declined by 40 percent last year as the Asian nation’s economy slowed.

Analysts said the change in China’s investment also might reflect a decrease in the nation’s need for minerals from Africa.

China is Africa’s largest trading partner. Trade both ways totaled $220 billion in 2015, with China primarily receiving minerals from Africa in exchange for manufactured goods.

Conference first in Africa

Japan seeks to rival the Chinese with increased investment in the continent.

The sixth Tokyo International conference is the first to be held in Africa. Previously staged in Japan every five years since 1993, but will now be held every three years and the Africans have been encouraged to take ownership of the process.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to announce the 60 aid projects during the Nairobi conference Aug. 27 and 28.

The Japan-Africa partnership is not without friction. In 2013, Japan announced financial assistance of $32 billion but African officials note that so far only about 20 percent has been disbursed. The Japanese, meanwhile, want to see appropriate technology and training in place before they commit more funds.

Read more

Algeria’s Sonatrach awards $100 mil pipe deal to foreign firms

23 March 2016 Comments (0) Business, Latest Updates from Reuters, Middle East

ALGIERS (Reuters) – Algeria’s state energy firm Sonatrach has awarded a $100 million contract to supply oil and gas drilling tubes to five foreign firms as part of its drive to increase production, a document seen by Reuters on Tuesday showed.

The companies named in the Sonatrach document are Germany’s CCC Machinery, Dutch firm Van Leeuwen, Vallourec Tubes France, Kurvers Piping France, and High Sealed&Coupled from China.

OPEC member Algeria, which has been hurt by a 70 percent fall in oil prices since mid-2014, is campaigning for more foreign investment to increase oil and gas production to sustain exports and meet growing local demand.

But recent bidding rounds have failed to attract much interest from foreign oil producers.

Sonatrach also said on Tuesday it had made a new oil find with Thailand’s PTTEP and China’s CNOOC following successful drilling in the Hassi Bir Rekaiz area in Algeria.

“This represents 20,000 barrels per day,” a Sonatrach source told Reuters.

Sonatrach holds a 51 percent stake in the project, with the other two companies owning 24.5 percent each.

The state energy company is focusing on developing areas around existing fields and hiking production at its mature fields. It will also invest $3.2 billion over four years to increase pipeline capacity as natural gas output rises from new and existing fields.

 

(By Lamine Chikhi. Editing by Patrick Markey and Susan Thomas)

Read more

Nigeria central bank raises benchmark interest rate in surprise move

22 March 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigeria’s central bank unexpectedly raised the benchmark interest rate to 12 percent from 11 percent on Tuesday, changing gears to curb galloping inflation after cutting the rate only four months ago.

The bank also raised the cash reserve ratio (CRR) for commercial banks to 22.5 percent from 20 percent and it held the liquidity ratio at 30 percent, Governor Godwin Emefiele said.

Emefiele said after a meeting of its monetary policy committee that the central bank would keep the naira foreign exchange rate stable despite a sharp fall of the currency on the parallel market due to shortages of dollars.

Africa’s biggest economy is going through its worst economic crisis in years due to a slump in crude prices. Oil exports account for around 70 percent of national income.

Emefiele attributed the rate hike to the state of the economy and rising annual inflation, which hit 11.4 percent in February, a three-and-a-half year high and well above the central bank’s target band of 6 to 9 percent.

“The committee noted that excess liquidity in the banking system was contributing to the current pressure in the foreign exchange market with a strong path through to consumer prices,” he told reporters.

But some analysts saw the tightening of monetary policies as a signal that the bank would devalue the naira eventually. The currency has fallen some 40 percent on the parallel market as import firms struggle to get dollars from official channels.

“This definitely reflects a departure from policy in recent months and we interpret this as a leading indicator for a possible naira devaluation later down the line,” said Cobus de Hart, analyst at NKC African Economics.

“This may signal that the central bank is starting to lean towards tightening policy in anticipation of higher inflation following a devaluation,” he said.

 

WEAK INVESTOR CONFIDENCE

Eighteen of 20 analysts polled by Reuters had expected the central bank to hold interest rates steady at 11 percent.

Alan Cameron, an economist at brokerage Exotix, said the central bank had raised the benchmark rate as the previous loosening of monetary policy had not given a fillip to the economy.

“I think there is a realisation the liquidity they have been injecting wasn’t turning into overall lending in the economy because the confidence is not very high, so it made sense to withdraw that.”

Emefiele also called for swift approval of the 2016 budget, which on Tuesday was put on the agenda of the upper house of parliament for debate.

 

(By Camillus Eboh. Reporting by Ulf Laessing, Alexis Akwagyiram, Chijioke Ohuoha and Oludare Mayowa; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram and Ulf Laessing; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Read more

Libya joins Iran in snubbing oil freeze

22 March 2016 Comments (0) Business, Latest Updates from Reuters, Middle East

LONDON (Reuters) – Libya does not plan to attend an April 17 meeting of oil producers about freezing supply to support prices, a Libyan OPEC delegate said on Tuesday, joining fellow OPEC member Iran in snubbing the initiative.

The absence of the two OPEC members would limit the impact of any freeze by producers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries along with Russia, even though Libya’s output has been curtailed for many months by unrest and the chance of it increasing production swiftly is low.

“We are not going,” the Libyan delegate said, referring to the meeting in Doha next month. “Clearly, they have to allow us to go back to our production when the security situation in the country improves.”

Libya has made its wish to return to pre-conflict oil production rates clear since four countries reached a preliminary deal on freezing output in February.

Other producers understand this, the delegate said. “They appreciate the situation we are in.”

Qatar, which has been organising the meeting, has invited all 13 OPEC members and major outside producers. The talks are expected to widen February’s initial output freeze deal by Qatar, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, plus non-OPEC Russia.

The initiative has supported a rally in oil prices, which were about $41 a barrel on Tuesday, up from a 12-year low near $27 in January, despite doubts over whether the deal is enough to tackle excess supply in the market.

Iran has yet to say whether it will attend the meeting. But Iranian officials have made clear Tehran will not freeze output as it wants to raise exports following the lifting of Western sanctions in January.

The potential volume Libya and Iran could add to the market is significant. But conflict in Libya has slowed output to around 400,000 barrels per day since 2014, a fraction of the 1.6 million bpd it pumped before the 2011 civil war.

Iran produced about 2.9 million bpd in January and officials are talking about adding a further 500,000 bpd to exports. So far though, Iran has sold only modest volumes to Europe after sanctions were removed.

 

(By Alex Lawler. Editing by David Clarke)

Read more