Singapore – Africa, the ideal fit?

He said Olam worked with more than 3,000 rice farmers in Nigeria and helped increase their average yield from less than one ton per hectare to three tons. “Without increasing their acreage, this improvement has transformed the lives of the farmers.” He suggested that the model could be replicated in other parts of Africa to increase the continent’s total yield.

Jean-Louis Billon, Minister for Commerce, Crafts & SME Promotion, Côte d’Ivoire, said that although agri-business development in had been slowed by the political and economic crisis, the country is now catching up. When he was in the private sector, he also found partners in Singapore who helped with generating much better yields.

The final session was on transport and logistics. Amadou Diallo, CEO, DHL Freight, highlighted the logistical difficulties in Africa when he said that drivers will be stopped an average of 36 times and pay about $865 in bribes when they transport goods from East African ports into Rwanda by road. From Senegal to Kenya or South Africa, they are stopped 125 times and it costs $200-$300 in bribes, along with costs for the fuel and the driver. Moving a truck about the same distance within Germany, on the other hand, costs $300, with no stops and bribes. “We have clear challenges. We have a lot to learn from Singapore,” Diallo said.

Tan Chong Meng, Group CEO, PSA International, said that Singapore has already started to look at ways to make the best use of ports in Africa. For example, Singapore has helped Kenya and Tanzania with technical support, so there is now 20-30% more capacity in their existing components.

Saw Ken Wye, CEO, CrimsonLogic, said it is easy to replicate the technology CrimsonLogic has developed for customs. The company now has 16 implementations worldwide, with six in Africa. Starting in Mauritius, CrimsonLogic moved to Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique, Madagascar and Kenya. Their computerised systems have slashed clearance times and made saving in the billions of dollars.

An ideal fit?
This is, of course, only a brief summary of the Africa – Singapore business forum. A lot of MOUs and other agreements were also signed but the most valuable outcome was that both sides now have a much clearer understanding of how they can work together for mutual benefit and that in terms of its business processes, Singapore seems to be the ideal fit for Africa’s current needs.

The continent, it is clear, is also both a rapidly expanding market for Singaporean exporters and, more crucially, is in an ideal position for Singaporean SMEs to help kick start the industrialisation phase. The only two pieces of the jigsaw that are needed to make the match as good as it can get is better air and banking connections. Ethiopian Airlines is already serving Singapore regularly via its Bangkok route and there were whispers that Ecobank might not be too far away from setting up shop there.