Ground staff loading fresh produce into a Kenya Airways Boeing 787

According to the BBC, between 50-75% of the retail prices of goods sold in Africa are made of transportation cost?

Why?
Over reliance on foreign imports. Many African entrepreneurs are more likely to get rich quicker and obtain success faster through the importation of goods and supplies from foreign countries particularly China and India in their bussiness operations. It is apparently cheaper for entrepreneurs and manufacturers to import from these countries than from neighbouring African nations. This is largely due to poor supply chains and transportation networks, cumbersome and slow customs.

Ghana, for example, produces rubber then exports to China where it is used to make masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) and sold around the world with the richer European and North American countries having the first pick, African countries being poor often marginalized if not ignored. Same thing applies to the oil production, cocoa, cashew and other raw materials. On the other side of the continent, South Africa and Kenya are losing in their $13b fresh cut flower industries which largely relies on foreign (European and North American) markets.

Pandemic Induced Wake Up Call?
The Pandemic:COVID-19 is a wake up call. With competition for PPE, airport closures and limited supplies, African countries and entrepreneurs are learning a hard lessons. Exporting of raw materials such oil has dropped, markets are volatile and Africans are outpaced in the PPE wars.

Africans are now forced to look within the continent to find supply sources, improve their infrastructure and supply chains. We have to develop our raw materials at home to have an increased control, create more jobs, increase prices and support local manufacturing. Apparently about the infrastructural gap to get the supply chains needed to get Africa to the required level to compete with other parts of the world is between $90-130b. But would African countries prioritize this?

Bad News!
Foreign companies (Russian, Iranian, Indian, Chinese, Singaporean and South Korean) are rather noticing this huge potential and investing more heavily than African entrepreneurs.

Questions?
So when will African countries notice their own potentials? When will they help support their own local researchers and entrepreneurs to develop their own resources? Or they will continue to leave it for the foreigners and later complain about foreign invasions? Will countries like Ghana that have resorted to manufacturing their own PPE continue this trend and expand their manufacturing capacities beyond the pandemic? Will they resource local entrepreneurs to compete fairly with well resourced foreign companies?

Food for thought!

Akosua G
Ontario, Canada
July 05, 2020

Reference
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53100287…

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