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Published 1st February 2013

Vol 6 (AAC) No 4

Liberia

Farmers take on agribusiness

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures
Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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Asian agribusiness companies face opposition from NGOs and locals who claim that communities have the right to manage their lands

Uncertainty over land rights is stirring controversy for palm oil developers in Liberia. Local and international non-governmental organisations have targeted two agribusiness giants, Sime Darby and Golden Veroleum, for their land-clearing and compensation policies.At the root of the conflict is the leasing by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s government of huge tracts of land, where hundreds of thousands of people were living, on the basis that all undeeded land is public.

China Union angers locals and workers

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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China Union is embroiled in land-rights disputes as it struggles to rehabilitate the Bong iron-ore mines and begin exports (China Union under fire in Bong County). In 2009,...

China cool on intervention

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Japan and India have pledged their support but China has legal – and ideological – doubts about the French response to the crisis

Japan promised US$120 million, India $101 mn. and China $1 mn. These headline pledges in emergency aid to Mali graphically illustrate Beijing’s unease at a crisis-management strategy spearheaded...

Learning from the East

The World Bank is working with the government so that Addis Ababa can repeat the successful growth model of its Asian trading partner

In December 2012, the World Bank published an in-depth study of Chinese investors in Ethiopia. Based on interviews with the executives of 69 companies operating there, the study...

Victory for local fishermen

A US$100 million investment in Mauritania is in the balance after the Nouakchott authorities suspended a contract with a Chinese fishery. Officials from the Ministry of Fishing and...

Raw deals for Windhoek

The government is re-evaluating several Chinese deals, suggesting that Windhoek is now taking a less optimistic view of its partners in Beijing

The once-ardent relationship between Namibia and China appears to be cooling. Over the past six months, the Windhoek government has cancelled two tenders, amounting to about US$500 million,...

South Africa scrambles for Africa

The African National Congress (ANC) government has ordered South African state-owned companies to mount an aggressive trade offensive into Africa to counter the onslaught of investments by foreign...

Rotten timber trade

Chinese businesses use personal ties to Mozambican politicians and officials to run a network of illegal timber exports that mask the environmental impact of logging. So concludes the...

Costly deals and close relations

Namibia is dragging its heels with two other state-owned Chinese companies (see Raw deals for Windhoek), China Gezhouba Group (CGG) and China National Machinery and Engineering Corporation (CMEC),...

Trouble on the line

Technologie et Système d’Information/Korea Telelcom of South Korea has cried foul after Vietnam’s Viettel won Cameroon’s third mobile telephone licence in December 2012. TSI/KT claims that the tender...

Pointers

Teo Eng Cheong

Chief Executive Officer of International Enterprise Singapore

Teo Eng Cheong, 46, is head of International Enterprise Singapore, a government-run board whose Global Company Partnership helps private companies with access to markets and financing...

John Kerry

Secretary of State, United States

John Forbes Kerry warned the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee of the long-term economic cost of stagnant commercial ties with Africa shortly before his appointment as Secretary...

Arvin Boolell

Foreign Minister, Mauritius

In January, Arvin Boolell urged India to revise rather than abandon the India–Mauritius Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement. Mauritius has no capital gains tax and the treaty allows funds...

Ali Mahmoud Abdul Rasul

Minister of Finance and National Economy, Sudan

Finance Minister Ali Mahmoud Abdul Rasul announced on 17 January that his National Congress Party government had secured a US$1.5 billion loan from the state-run China Development Bank....

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