All Entries in the "Economy" Category

Maponya Mall

A shot of the astonishing Maponya Mall in Soweto, courtesy of Google Earth. Not hard to find from space. Ground level video of the opening in 2007 here.  Ray Lewis of the Bloggers’  Tour took this video.  Note the motorcyclists in the parking lot. Representative of a trend among upwardly mobile Sowetans.  And here’s a good pic of the main entrance hall with Xmas tree, from Deshanta Naidoo’s  Flickr photostream.

Bullish on Africa

“From re-emerged South Africa to more incipient financial centers like Ghana, Egypt and Kenya, investors are engaged in a 21st-century scramble for Africa”, the Wall Street Journal reports in its European editions today. This follows a great piece in yesterday’s Washington Post — the second in a series on the continent’s economic emergence — looking at Africa’s growing middle class. Then there’s this from Business Day. An article in the latest edition of the IMF quarterly Finance and Development, concludes:

The rise of some African countries to emerging market status gives them a tremendous economic opportunity. Access to capital markets is a key ingredient to high and sustainable private sector–led growth, and this access had long seemed out of reach for Africa; it is now a reality.

Here’s a graphic from the piece:

Upward Mobility

The South African middle class grows — a graphic from the current issue of Financial Mail. Story here.

Investing in Africa’s “Good News Story”

NESTLÉ, one of the biggest food groups in the world, has invested more than R1bn in SA in the past three years, and will continue investing in the country and the African continent, CEO Paul Bulcke tells Business Day.