Monthly Archives: October 2006

Shortages

Cement
Caused by unexpectedly high construction demand around the country and with cement companies already producing at full capacity.

Financing
For the missing middle. Many banks claim to have financing products for SME sector, but the collateral, and other borrowing requirements are too rigid for many deserving applicants.

Good stockbrokers
A very lucrative business (1.5% commission per trade) with restricted membership, but with hundreds of thousands of new customers (from Kengen, Scangroup, Equity and Kenya Re IPO’s) why not license more players to enter the sector and serve these new shareholders?

Water
There’s a water shortage this week in some parts of the city and blame is being put on water diversion to the ongoing Nairobi International Trade Fair (aka Nairobi Show) whose many activities require a lot of water.

KCB treading

KCB has lowered borrowing rates for a variety of retail loans by up to 5% and the move is already having a knockdown effect with customers, at other bank, asking for their loans rates to also be lowered likewise.

But for KCB, their intention is probably to accelerate their lending which has remained flat this year. From January to June 2006 their loan book is up less than 1%, compared to peers Barclays and Standard Charted whose loan books have increased by 7% and Equity Bank whose loan book increased 46% in the half year.

Card ping
CFC card account holders can receives SMS each time their MasterCard’s are used/charged.

School Finance Loans
(From Africa Intelligence )
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) will provide financing for private school institutions in Kenya, towards purchase of educational materials, and other capital expenditures under a formula which it inaugurated in Ghana last year.

On the flip side Bretton Woods Project offers six reasons why the World Bank (and IFC) should not finance educational projects

Kikwete Impresses

… The Economist (and George Bush)

While still very poor, Tanzania is set for 5.8% GDP growth this year and perhaps 6.7% next. A popular president, former foreign minister Jakaya Kikwete, hopes to build up the country’s sparse infrastructure, expand access to drinking water, and improve agricultural productivity. What’s so different about a president who makes big plans? Just this:

  • Mr Kikwete travels with minimal security.
  • He scrolls through several hundred text messages on his mobile phone each day, most of them from ordinary citizens who have somehow obtained his number. Sometimes he texts back.
  • He is clearheaded on international issues. He is happy to contribute three battalions to a prospective UN peacekeeping force in the Darfur region of Sudan, he says, so long as someone else foots the bill.

(From PSD blog)

But also troubling in the Economist is this article abut a possible threat to tourism at the Kenya coast from unstable elements in neighbouring Somalia.