Andrew Stegmann

Nigeria: Uber Personal Ride APP Launches in Abuja

The ride-hailing app Uber has launched in Abuja, the 400th city since it first started helping city residents hail personal commutes.

Abuja is the second Nigerian city where Uber will deploy its technology for linking drivers and commuters since launching in Lagos in 2014.

Ebi Atawodi, general manager for Uber Nigeria, said Uber’s reaching into Abuja came from growing interest from people trying out the technology.

“People were opening up the app and we were not even in Abuja yet,” Atawodi said at a launch press conference in Abuja.

Experts believe Abuja’s structured road network and transportation infrastructure, compared with Lagos, could help the Uber platform perform better.

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Andrew Stegmann

Turkish plans permanent Cape Town service

The seasonality of the Cape Town market remains the biggest challenge for international airlines wanting to operate year-round daily flights to the Mother City.Turkish-plans-permanent-Cape-Town-service-800x400

Speaking to Tourism Update at Turkish Airlines’ annual golf event at Pearl Valley golf course in Franschhoek, Kenan Ince, Cape Town GM of Turkish Airlines, said while demand to Cape Town and passenger volumes had significantly increased in recent months, the airline would still switch back to servicing Cape Town through Johannesburg and Durban at the end of March, after flying directly to the city since the end of October last year.

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Andrew Stegmann

Time for Africa to diversify

Cape Town – Africa has to come to terms with and accept the “new normal” of lower commodity prices and start diversifying economies in order to face this challenge, according to Jacqueline Chimhanzi, senior strategist at the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC).

“Why did we expect China to continue to grow and grow? It had to slow down at some point. It is painful for Africa, but it is the new normal,” she said at the recent GTR Africa Trade Finance Week in Cape Town.

“The concept of Africa Rising was about commodities. I warned about this in the past – about Africa Rising having been based was on chance, on China wanting our commodities.”i_love_africa_by_biga_nt-d5clqmo

In her view it is, therefore, now the time to make matters on the continent about finding a way forward without China.

“Africa must diversify and industrialise. There is no reason why Africa cannot feed itself,” she emphasised.

Chris Sturgess, director of commodity derivatives at the JSE, said during a panel discussion that there has been a lot of talk in the past about the cycle of commodities. Now it has become a crisis.

“The strategy in Africa must be how to produce more food and open export. We in Africa must, however, stop just talking about increased production and actually start doing it,” he cautioned.

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Andrew Stegmann

South Africa: Unhappy South Africans

South African PassportThe World Happiness Index 2016 (http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2016/) was released in Rome this week, ahead of World Happiness Day, which took place on 20 March – a day before South Africans celebrated their hard-won Human Rights Day.

However, life in post-apartheid South Africa is apparently not a happy one, with South Africa being ranked 116th out of 157 countries – and slipping three places down from last year. This makes us a sadder place than our immediate neighbour, Namibia and Zambia and interestingly Iraq. But better off than Botswana and worst off country, Liberia. Of our BRIC partners Brazil ranks 17th, Russia takes the 56th spot, India is just below us at 118 and China is a solid performer at 83. The happiest place in the world right now is Denmark – even without enough average sunshine for your ubiquitous Human Rights Day braai.

The list is compiled by looking at six indicators, including GDP per capita, social support, (these first two are not terrible in South Africa), healthy life expectancy (here we start to slip), social freedom, generosity (what happened to Ubuntu?) and perception of corruption (Zuptagate). ‘The scores of these six factors were then compared to “Dystopia” – a hypothetical country that contained all of the worst scores. This acted as a benchmark for the worst possible country.

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