The Managing Director of a Kenyan company with operations across East Africa explained to me that “Rwanda is embracing investors. They have an organized, one-stop process. We were done with registration within a week.” Her experience doing business in Burundi was completely different. “The laws are not publicized and they change overnight”, she said. “Half […]
Even Neighboring Countries are Distant
As I ventured into Nigeria and Kenya, the locals warned me: “don’t think all of Africa is like us.” In fact, This has important implications for companies doing business in Africa and expanding in the continent: whether traditional multinationals, emerging market multinationals (EMMs), Pan-African companies, and even African regional companies. What does country distance mean? In his CAGE […]
Trading Times Across East African Borders
My young friend Giovanni came back from a visit to East Africa last week. As part of the trip, he traveled by car from Uganda to Kenya. This involves crossing the Malaba border where trucks can wait anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks. But the driver was an expert at crossing this border, so they only […]
Intra-African trade and transportation
When I wrote about intra-Africa business travel a few weeks ago, Charles Ivenco – one of my friends from Lagos Business School – left a comment in which he told us about the improvements in air transportation over the last decade, and how this is related to the increased levels of intra-African trade. According to […]