“Ecobank has duly responded to the lack of adequate incentives that boosts investment and saving s in the country. This promotion will not only reward our customers but willin turn continue to strengthen the saving culture in kenya” the bank’s manager said at a press conference.

The bank that boasts of 24 branches across the country created an all inclusive financial system that allows all current and savings account both for existing and a new account can stand a chance to win once they deposit 2000 shillings in their account and maintain the same within the month.

Entrepreneurs stand a chance to win if they make regular deposits with the bank. A savings culture in the country could prove vital to the economy, the entreprenuer as well as the borrowers. Entrepreneurs are therefore advice to switch to the culture of saving.

Increasing costs and a challenging economic environment during the past five years in both Kenya and Europe have contributed to the decision to withdraw the service. A consultation period has started with the Virgin Atlantic staff employed in Nairobi.

Julie Southern, Chief Commercial Officer for Virgin Atlantic said, “We have taken the difficult decision to withdraw our services between Nairobi and London. Despite the best efforts of our employees, external factors including the high price of fuel, increasing aviation taxes in the UK and insufficient passenger numbers throughout the past five years have contributed to the decision.”

“These are still challenging times for the airline industry and we have to deploy our aircraft to routes with the right level of demand to be financially viable.”

“We will be supporting our staff in Nairobi through a period of consultation. We’d like to thank our customers and business partners for their support.”

See Also: Virgin Atlantic To Use Mpesa

Sir Richard Branson, President of Virgin Atlantic said, “Virgin Atlantic is extremely sad to be withdrawing from Kenya. During the past five years a combination of record fuel prices, higher and higher taxes imposed by the UK Government and a poorly timed slot not providing connections from London, have made it uneconomical to fly from Nairobi.”

“Virgin remains committed to Kenya and it is a well known fact that I love this country and its people.  For the past five years our team in Nairobi have worked incredibly hard and we hope to return should the economic situation change.”

Since Virgin Atlantic launched in 2007, British Air Passenger Duty (APD) has risen by over 100% and fuel costs have increased by more than 50%.

The last Virgin Atlantic flight will operate from Nairobi on the 24th September and from London Heathrow on the 23rd September. The full published schedule will be operated until this point so passengers can be confident and continue to book flights throughout the next few months.

It will be interesting to see what British Airways & Kenya Airways will do to capture that gap that has been created by the exit of Virgin Atlantic.

The sharp downturn in global FDI in 2008 hit Kenyan investment most strongly in transport investment, ICT and financial services, SIMS reported. But, in what was a counter-cyclical trend, investments into Kenya’s agribusiness and manufacturing sectors rose sharply even as the global financial crisis took hold.

Between 2007 and 2008, foreign direct investment in agribusiness in Kenya rose by 42 per cent, while FDI into Kenyan manufacturing rose by 87 per cent. At the same time, global FDI fell by more than 10 per cent.

“According to the McKinsey Global Institute, Africa is home to 60 per cent of the world’s total uncultivated, arable land, and there is the opportunity,” said Abdi Khalid, presenting the SIMS report.

“Already, a growing number of private equity funds are springing up to finance agricultural production in Africa.”

After reaching a low in 2009, global flows have also been increasing, with last year marking a 17 per cent rise to levels now at pre-recession figures in terms of the value of foreign funds being invested.

However, the proportion of funds moving into developing markets has fallen since the global recession. Moreover, last year saw a marked shift in the nature of FDI, from equity investment to reinvestment of profits.

“There has been a bias to reinvest profits in host countries rather than put in more equity capital. Foreign firms have also increased debt to their subsidiaries to support expansion and other growth initiatives. In our opinion, this move is mainly driven by risk aversion after the global financial crisis,” said Khalid.

With this kind of investment driven by existing investments in a country, and Kenya having long drawn unusually low levels of FDI by comparison with other nations globally and other East African nations, the move towards further building existing foreign investments is not set to run in Kenya’s favour in catching up its FDI gap.

However, the counter-cyclical strength in the country’s agrobusiness and manufacturing stands as the most prominent opportunity for attracting and building foreign investment flows, with the support of improved infrastructure and regulatory encouragement, stated the SIMS team.

On this basis, and if Kenya’s GDP growth targets are to be achieved, urgent and concerted attention is now needed to enhance the country’s manufacturing capabilities for the regional market, strengthen its position as a regional services hub, reinforce the Agri-business success, diversify FDI into EPZs, and improve infrastructure.

“FDIs as a source of more sticky capital remain underexploited, even though there remains a great potential if deliberate effort and initiatives are put in place,” said Anthony Mwithiga of SIMS.

To unveil the strategic plan will be the Swedish Ambassador H.E Amb. Anne Dismorr as the chief guest, other guests will be CIC Chairman Charles Nyachae, Mr. Gideon Gathaara Conservation secretary, MF & W and Mr. Odenda Lumumba- CEO Kenya Land Alliance .

Venue: Crowne Plaza

Date: 15th May 2012

Kick Off: 8.30am

Well you may wonder what an EPZ is! According to Wikipedia, export processing zone (EPZ) is an area within which goods may be landed, handled, manufactured or reconfigured, and reexported without the intervention of the customs authorities. Only when the goods are moved to consumers within the country in which the zone is located do they become subject to the prevailing customs duties.

“Well in Kenya, anyone can set up an EPZ anywhere in the country – all that is needed is a little land (even 1 acre) and an application licence of $5000 per year” said Kiprono Felix Kiptum of pesaDroid

Mr. Kiptum continued to mention that Companies inside the EPZ get a 10 year tax holiday and they do not pay for VAT or duty even when they import raw materials (except for vehicles and fuel). They are allowed to sell 20% of their stuff locally.

EPZ are organized around major seaports, international airports, and national frontiers—areas with many geographic advantages for trade. It is a region where a group of countries has agreed to reduce or eliminate trade barriers.

If an EPZ is to be set up in your county, what products do you think you can export?

Photo Courtesy of ONE.org Flickr

Latest figures show that General Motors SSA region, excluding South Africa, has shown a remarkable 48 percent increase in wholesale vehicle sales, year on year, when compared to the first four months of 2011.

“General Motors has committed itself to aggressively grow its business in Sub-Saharan Africa this year and, based on these figures, we are succeeding,” said Rita Kavashe, Exports Director for General Motors Sub-Saharan Africa and Managing Director of General Motors East Africa Operations.

The Sub Saharan Africa Left Hand Drive market, which includes countries such as Angola, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria and Senegal, among others, showed an astronomical 117% growth for the first four months, year on year, while the South East Africa Right Hand Drive markets, which include Mauritius, Zambia and Zimbabwe, among others, showed a modest 10% year on year growth rate.

East Africa, which includes countries such as Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, showed a 12% growth in the first four months, compared to 2011.

The top five performing countries, Angola, Kenya, Mauritius, Zimbabwe and Zambia, had year on year volume increases varying from 22% to a staggering 180%.

Kavashe said GM would continue to leverage their operations in the region to capitalise on the long term growth opportunities that the region offered.

“Our efforts have been focused on strengthening our logistics and dealer distribution footprint, ensuring that we have the right product portfolio in place and providing enhanced support to our customers,” she said.

Kavashe said GM also planned on launching eight new products into the Sub-Saharan Africa markets during 2012, as the company looked to further grow volumes in the region.

Photo Courtesy of topnews.net.nz

The partnership will enable our customers to access cash advances quickly and conveniently.

Entrepreneurs be able to apply for a loan from the convenience of their mobile phones by simply dialing *305# and following the menu to access their loans. Customers must be registered with Airtel money and active users.

Repayment period will be after 10 days at an affordable interest rate.

Would you go for such cash advance?

Speaking during a launch function for the Kopa Chapaa service, Faulu Kenya Managing Director Mr. John Mwara said Faulu is well geared to exploit technology to scale up outreach to the unbanked and semi banked by the reducing cost of transactions, improving on convenience and ease of access.

Microfinance Institutions play an important role in the economic development of both rural and urban communities. It is the access to savings and credit that enables households to accumulate wealth and assets which enables them to better manage their economic and social challenges.

Providing financial services to Kenyans living in rural areas with limited access to conventional financial services remains a challenging goal to all. The Kenyan rural environment is characterized by poor communications infrastructure, relatively low population density, low levels of literacy and relatively undiversified economies. Partnerships with players serving such segments are key to meeting Kenya’s financial goals for vision 2030.

Airtel ventured into the local mobile commerce business two years ago and provides e-commerce solutions including online payments, online banking, utility bill payments for electricity, DSTV, and water. Airtel Money currently has a vast dealer network of more than 6,000 agents which include banks, bank agents, supermarket chains and Posta outlets.

The new service dubbed Credo4yu gives users up to Kes. 20 of emergency airtime credit if they run out of airtime at any given time and need to make an urgent call.

The service is available to those subscribers who have less than Kes. 2 of airtime left, and have been on the network for at least three months.

Speaking at the launch of the service, Country Manager Madhur Taneja said:

“At yuMobile, we remain committed to ensuring mobile telecommunication remains accessible to more people and will continue making our contribution to the lives of Kenyans by continuously offering services that address the needs of Kenyans. Credo4yu has come about due to consumer demand. Our subscribers have always had the need to keep in touch all the time and this will enable them to get airtime in case of emergencies, which as part of life, tend to arise”.

To access the service, subscribers dial *125# or send a blank SMS to 125 – for Ksh 20 credit or *125*10# or send a blank SMS to 126 – For Ksh 10 credit. Any airtime acquired on credit via credo4yu, will need to be repaid with the next top up before being able to access more airtime on credit. The credo4yu advance airtime can be used for all yuMobile services, including calls to other networks & SMS, subscription to packs, data, as well yu to yu calls and SMS.

Explaining why Airtel took up this initiative, Airtel Kenya managing director Mr. Shivan Bhargava said, that his Company believed that business was not an end in itself but rather a means to helping the society achieve more, and that Airtel has a special role in helping Kenyans accomplish more in their daily lives. He added that, “Airtel’s association with the police in the Coast Province is a way of creating positive impact in our communities and ensuring that security is enhanced through a fast, reliable and affordable means of communication in line with the Company’s vision of delivering quality mobile connectivity to all Kenyans.’

Speaking while receiving the phones Coast PPO Mr. Aggrey Adoli said, “We are grateful to Airtel for not only providing an efficient means of communication but also by touching the entire community in this area and helping with the tools that will make them feel more secure through the enhanced efficiency of the police in the maintenance of law and order in the region. The phones will go a long way in ensuring that security is enhanced through timely and efficient communication between the police officers and the police stations and also between the police and the community at large.”

Bharti Airtel has undertaken several initiatives in the social welfare space while strengthening existing projects to ensure inclusive growth and positive impact in society. In the last one year, the company has extended its initiative by providing quality education to underprivileged children in the 17 African countries it operates in. Bharti Airtel is adopting at least one primary school in each of these 16 countries.

Airtel in Kenya is also assisting schools in Kenya including Kimuchu Primary school in Thika Municipality, Kipeto Primary School in Kajiado in line with the ‘Our School’ Corporate Social Responsibility initiative. The company recently donated twenty five computers to Nyamira Girl’s High School in Nyanza province.