Cashew accounts for more than 90 percent of Guinea-Bissau’s export earnings. Almost the entire crop is exported to India, particularly to Kerala, for processing.

“If you establish a company in Guinea Bissau, you can have free access to a big market that numbers 300 million inhabitants in the case of ECOWAS, and 100 million in the case of the monetary union,” said de Barros.

Guinea-Bissau is a member of two regional economic groupings - Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA).

“Companies from both countries should work together to set up processing factories so that jobs are also created,” he said, adding that Guinea Bissau could be the gateway for Indian businesses to West Africa.

Pointing to India’s knowledge and human resource base, he said Guinea-Bissau, a country of 1.5 million bordered by Senegal, Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean, required knowledge and technology from India.

“We want India to be a part of the development of Guinea-Bissau. I think South-South cooperation is better for both parties.”

The Tata group, which gets 2.3% of its revenue from Africa, aims to grow its business in the continent by 30% a year by increasing its presence in automotive, mining, infrastructure and hospitality sectors, a company official told reporters on Monday.

The group, which had operations in Africa since 1977, plans to enter seven new countries in the next 3-4 years, increasing its presence to 20 countries in the continent.

Indian companies such as Essar, Bharti Airtel Ltd, Bajaj Auto Ltd and Tata Motors Ltd are investing in the continent to create new markets for their products, establish brands and influence consumer preferences.

Commerce minister Anand Sharma on Monday said that the bilateral trade between Africa and India is expected to reach $100 billion by 2015 and the target could well be achieved in 2014. Sharma said that Indian investments in Africa are now close to $50 billion.

Tata group said five of its companies are operating Africa and it will increase investments in the continent.

“We have made investments of around $1.7 billion in all the running projects in Africa and we will continue to augment that,” said Raman Dhawan, managing director, Tata Africa Holdings.

“The focus areas will be power projects, telecommunications, automotive, mining and hospitality.”

“We are realising that it is not just about price but also quality that is standing out for Indian imports, and this is something that can definitely be sustained in the near-term. Regional proximity of India also makes it easy to travel to and to transport goods to Kenya,” Tiberius Barasa, the executive director of the Centre for Policy Research, a governance and public policy analysis think-tank, said in a recent interview.

Chinese imports value was second at Sh167.2 billion, followed by the United Arab Emirates’ Sh150 billion worth of imports. Import value from the UAE of Sh28.5 billion in March was the highest recorded in a single month in 2012.

Kenya, a net importer of capital goods, has in recent years turned to Asia and fellow African countries for external trade, shifting away from its traditional European source markets with declining trade volumes.

Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital is growing fast in the African continent. Having opened seven hospitals in the recent past, now it wants to add 13 more in two years.

“We are getting a lot of patients from Africa. Earlier, West Asia and South Asia used to contribute to a large chunk of international patients and now Africa dominates. Either patient come on their own or they are referred by physicians in the respective countries. Now we want to make eye care available at their doorsteps,” said Amar Agarwal, CMD of Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital.

Dr Agarwal’s has a presence in six African nations, including Mauritius, Madagascar and Mozambique. A total of 20 hospitals in countries, including Nigeria, Tanzania and Rwanda, will give a fairly large presence in the African continent.

The African hospitals will be part of the 60 new hospitals planned by Dr Agarwal’s in next two years. The remaining 40 will be in India to give the company a pan-India presence. The company will invest Rs 400 crore on the new hospitals.

Ed’s note: They are reputable in India.

Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Governor of Kano state located in North-Western part of Nigeria, has urged Indian entrepreneurs to invest in apparel manufacturing in his state.

Indian garment investors should utilize the abundant natural resources and manpower available in the Kano state, said the Governor during his visit to India to attend a three-day India International Garment Fair 2013 held in New Delhi last month.

He added that India has several decades of experience and latest technology in the apparel manufacturing sector, which can be utilized for improving the quality of garment production and generating new job opportunities in Kano state.

In a statement, Mr. Kwanksawo expressed his interest in upgrading few of the garment production units in the state. In addition, he said the Kano state government provides conducive climate for investors.

New Delhi, Feb 3 (IANS) Africa is not all about natural resources and old ways of looking at the continent have to change, says African Development Bank (AfDB) chief Donald Kaberuka. He said, unlike Europeans, emerging economies like India have taken a different view of an Africa that is changing dramatically.

“Africa is changing and the future is in our demographic dynamics, the future is in our demand as a market,” Kaberuka told IANS in an interview here.

While its large mineral wealth is a basis for the perception of Africa, Kaberuka said such a view was a legacy of the colonial past that continues to colour European engagement with an emerging Africa that now comprises 54 nations.

“Europeans are still in the prison of the 1990s when the African situation reflected the lost decades past of poverty and huge macroeconomic imbalances,” Kaberuka, who was on a business visit to India last week, said. And based on this different reading of Africa, most of the companies are coming from India, Brazil and Turkey to do business.

The Europeans have now begun “waking up” to the increasing presence of emerging economies’ companies only to give it a negative connotation.

“What are the Chinese, Brazilians, Indians doing here? Are you sure they are not here to exploit Africans? they (Europeans) ask,” Kaberuka said.

The AfDB head said India-Africa trade had grown more than six-fold in the last five years to nearly $50 billion from around $7 billion.

“Fifty percent of Africa’s exports to India is oil, but Africa is more than just oil and gas, gold and diamonds,” said Kaberuka.

India is moving in that direction, emphasising on capacity building in its engagement with African trading partners, with many of whom it has old cultural links. It has made efforts to change its composition towards more value-added exports from the continent.

“Africa should try to exploit India’s experience with development,” Kaberuka said. India has committed to set up 32 capacity-building institutions at the regional level and 40 at the bilateral level in Africa.

Leading engineering and construction conglomerate Shapoorji Pallonji International has appointed a veteran urban designer and planner to its chief business development position in Dubai, as the company moves ahead with aggressive growth plans.

Steven Miller, who has been appointed Senior Vice President Business Development, has been tasked with the job of pursuing the firm’s opportunities in the Middle East and Africa regions, as part of a growing worldwide practice.

Headquartered in Mumbai, Shapoorji Pallonji has an engineering and construction pedigree spanning almost 150 years and annual turnover of USD 2.5 billion, with a project portfolio covering multi-asset class developments in India, the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, and Sri Lanka.

With growth rates to rival Asia and vast untapped potential, Africa has moved beyond its reputation as a risky place to do business, leaders from the continent said on Wednesday.

Gathered at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, African leaders said that while many difficulties remain — including shabby infrastructure and widespread youth unemployment — investing in the continent is no longer the dangerous bet it once was.

“Is Africa more risky than any other region in the world?… This is a perception that needs to be dealt with,” South African President Jacob Zuma told a panel on “De-risking Africa” at the annual gathering of the global business elite.

“There is evidence that Africa is growing, there is also evidence that African leaders have collectively moved together to do things that will help Africa move forward,” he said.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan agreed that Africa should no longer be singled out.

“In any investment, any venture, there is always a risk in business, not just Africa,” Jonathan said on the panel.

“Before this time, African states were quite politically unstable… Now most countries are reasonably stable, so businessmen can make predictions.”

Bucking global trends, sub-Saharan Africa had enjoyed an unbridled economic boost and is forecast to enjoy the type of high growth rates not seen outside Asia in recent years.

The International Monetary Fund in October predicted the region’s economy would grow by 5% in 2012 and by 5.7% in 2013, with especially strong growth in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Angola and Gabon.

“The last bastion of big growth is the African continent,” Indian telecom mogul Sunil Bharti Mittal, whose Bharti Enterprises has extensive operations in Africa, told the panel

A final consideration: which categories, products or brands should you sell?

As in many other developing markets, instead of entering local categories to gain ground, firms can push their existing core categories and brands. To launch consumption leaders sometimes invest in consumer education.

Unilever, for example, grew the market for its toothbrushes and toothpaste in Nigeria with its “Brush Day and Night” campaign. The company educated the public about oral hygiene with easy-to-remember visuals in the backs of vans or in rural area schools, building robust growth over the past decade.

Entering or expanding in Africa may appear daunting because of the continent’s undeniable complexity.

No company can depend on a simple plug-and-play strategy to enter or on a single operating model to expand.

But our research shows that Africa is not significantly more challenging than many other emerging markets. As growth slows in developed markets and categories in other emerging markets quickly consolidate, Africa may be the next best place on Earth to look for a new growth engine.

And Indian companies, with their hard-won experience working in low cost, challenging and diverse home markets, are well positioned to lead the race.