Chinese Firms Seek Turkish Partners in Africa: Turkish Contractors’ Chief
Turkish firms, which thrived in a domestic economy fueled for years by cheap credit and a construction boom, are now faced with economic recession at home. Those that took out foreign currency loans have found their debts soaring as the Turkish lira slumped last year.
Turkish contractors are second only to Chinese companies in terms of international contracts, according to the Engineering News Record (ENR) which carries out annual surveys of the world’s top contractor companies.
Yenigun said Chinese firms had a 10-15 year headstart in Africa. They now see Turkish firms as potential rivals, he said, but are also looking for opportunities to work together.
He gave no specific examples of companies or projects but said that Chinese contractors want to work in projects in sub-Saharan countries with Turkish companies.
Senegal Invites Turks to Invest
Recently, energy investments in the world have started to gain importance. Africa is trying to attract a significant portion of these investments.
Dakar Petrogaz Expo 2019 will be held in Dakar, Senegal’s capital city on June 24-28. Senegal aims to attract international energy investors to the country. Senegal will provide a huge loan fund to the investors who will invest in the country in the field of oil, gas and renewable energy. The investor will not have to search for an international resource. Only 15 billion dollars were allocated by the government for these investments. In addition, 12 international funds were agreed to finance energy investments in the country. These special funds will also provide close to $ 5 billion to the companies that will invest in the projects to be exhibited at the fair.
This week met with representatives of the energy sector in Turkey Expo 2019 Dakar Petrogaz CEO Jehu Ndou me, “began to take a big leap in power over the past 5 years, Senegal. 400 billion cubic meters of natural gas and 700 billion barrels of oil were found. With these discoveries, improvements were made at the ports and major investments were made in the field of energy transportation. Now the state invites international energy companies to the country. The main purpose here is to benefit from their knowledge, experience and experience. The first investor preference as a state is solar power plants to be built in the field of renewable energy. We are especially looking for Turkish energy companies here.
Turkey in the solar field for this relationship to have a great experience in renewable energy and we want to continue. Incoming companies will provide Senegal energy infrastructure by providing cheap financing under state guarantees. We just want Turks to bring us their know-how Turk.
Tunisian Imports: We Are Strong Like a Turk!
According to the latest figures published by the National Institute of Statistics (INS), the deficit of the trade balance during the first four months of the year 2019 amounts to 6,34 billion dinars (MdD) against 5 , 09 billion in the same period in 2018. But what are these countries that export to us products of all kinds and to which we sell them almost nothing?
At the top of the ranking is China with a deficit of 2.01 billion, followed by Algeria with a deficit of 1.16 billion, then Italy with a deficit of 1.09 billion and finally Turkey with a deficit of 603.9 million dinars (MD). So many clothes, electronic accessories and all kinds of things come from the Middle Kingdom. What do we have to offer him in exchange? Strictly nothing. Even the Chinese started producing olive oil. While Italy is responsible for supplying us parts for our mechanical and electrical industry, Turkey floods each of our grocery or supermarket shelves with its agri-food products. Imports that only hurt domestic production companies that can no longer compete with the lobbies of international franchises.
We eat Turkish, we dress Turkish and soon we will talk. What do we have to offer in return? Cheap labor to go to Jihad in Syria.
10 Best African Countries for Doing Business 2019
The Doing Business index is a ranking index system, created by the World Bank Group, which indicates the regularity environment of businesses. A higher ranking, which is indicated by a lower numerical value, specifies a stronger protection of property rights, and visa versa.
The World Bank has annually been measuring the quality of worldwide business environments, for the past fifteen years, with its Doing Business ranking system. Over 190 economies have been scrutinized on criteria including: electrification and ease of business creation, the tax burden and the protection of property rights.
Doing Business measures regulations of the labour market (which has not been included in this year’s ranking) and for eleven areas in the life cycle of a business. Ten of these areas have been included in this year’s ranking on the “ease of doing business”. They are:
- Starting a business
- Obtaining a building permit
- Connecting to electricity
- Transferring ownership
- Getting credits
- Protecting minority investors
- Payment of taxes
- Cross-border trading
- Enforcing contracts
- Resolving insolvency
Following this criteria here are the top ten African economies:
- Mauritius
- Rwanda
- Morocco
- Kenya
- Tunisia
- South Africa
- Botswana
- Zambia
- Seychelles
- Djibouti
CENTER FOR AFRICAN STUDIES
Center for Africa Studies (AFRAM) which located in Ankara, is an organization facilitating under the administration of African Affairs Council (AFAC). It makes various researches about Africa to enhance economic and cultural bounds between Africa and Turkey. AFRAM’s publishings has been shared with different institutions as they require to obtain.
AFRICA OBSERVATORY
Africa Observatory is one the publishing of AFRAM and it has been published each two weeks. It has been delivered to different institutions via e-mail.