Overcoming the Challenges of Doing Business in Africa

This chapter presents a framework and suggests specific strategies to eliminate or minimize the impact of the environmental micro-challenges when doing business in Africa. The minimization of these challenges will most likely attract increased Foreign Direct Investments to Africa. The chapter discusses twenty different policy and strategic initiatives that can make Africa an attractive business region. It also thoroughly explains how effective application of these strategies has helped other regions or countries with emerging economies such as China, India, and Brazil to grow phenomenally in the last three decades.

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 114
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Klimakova ◽  
Alireza Nasiri

The global trend in digitization has revolution the global economy and the way of doing business in our world currently. The digital trend is instrumental to globalization and specifically international trade. In Russia, the application of digitization is relatively low compared to other emerging economies. Therefore, it becomes interesting to assess the prospects of digitization in increasing export of the country and extensively, if such influence on export is industrial sensitive. To accomplish this, we assessed industrial export of Russia and used panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) technique to determine the impact of digitization on Russia’s export. By implementing Mean Group (MG) estimator which was adjudged to be suitable for this model through the Hausman test, it could be revealed that the impact of digitization is more intense in the short-run. The long-run effect is not statistically significant. Based on industries, digitization is significantly responsible for the export of Crude materials, inedible, except fuels; and Machinery and transport equipment in the short-run while also contributes to the long-run increase in export of Beverages and tobacco. The prospect can be increased when the country adapts and adopts more in the global trend.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Tareq Hossain ◽  
Zubair Hassan ◽  
Sumaiya Shafiq ◽  
Abdul Basit

This study investigates the impact of Ease of Doing Business on Inward FDI over the period from 2011 to 2015 across the globe. This study measures ease of doing business using starting a business, getting credit, registering property, paying taxes and enforcing contracts. The research used a sample of 177 countries from 190 countries listed in World Bank. Least square regression model via E-views software used to examine causal relationship. The study found that ease of doing business indicators ‘Enforcing Contracts’ was found to have a positive significant impact on Inward FDI. Nevertheless, ‘Getting Credit’ and ‘Registering Property’ were found to have a negative significant impact on Inward FDI. However, ‘Starting a Business’ and ‘Paying Taxes’ have no significant impact on Inward FDI in the studied timeframe of this research. The findings of the study suggested the ease of doing business enables inward FDI through better contract enforcements, getting credit and registering property. The findings of the research will assist international managers and companies to know the importance of ease of doing business when investing in foreign countries through FDI.


Author(s):  
Jing Li ◽  
Daniel Shapiro

This chapter reviews the literature on foreign direct investments among emerging economies (E-E FDI), focusing on the motivations behind E-E FDI, country-specific advantages and firm-specific advantages associated with emerging-economy multinational enterprises (EMNEs), and spillover effects of E-E FDI on host-country economic and institutional development. We identify the following topics as posing important questions for future research: EMNEs’ ability to leverage home-government resources and diplomatic connections to promote investment in other emerging economies; nonmarket strategies of EMNEs in emerging economies; ownership and corporate governance affecting investment strategy and performance of EMNEs; E-E FDI contributions to sustainable development in host countries. Future studies should also consider potential heterogeneity among EMNEs by integrating insights from institutional theory, network theory, political science, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, and sustainable-development research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Esmeralda Jushi ◽  
Eglantina Hysa ◽  
Arjona Cela ◽  
Mirela Panait ◽  
Marian Catalin Voica

The ultimate goal of central banks, worldwide, is to promote the foundations for sustainable economic growth. In the case of developing economies, in particular, such objective requires time, huge efforts, attention, and plenty of resources in order to be accomplished to the fullest degree. This paper thoroughly investigates key factors affecting Balkan countries’ economic development (as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) growth), focusing especially on the impact of remittances. The analysis was done over an 18-year time interval (2000–2017) and builds on 144 observations. The data figures were retrieved from the World Bank database while two dummies were created to test the impact of the last financial crisis (2008–2012). Econometric tools were employed to carry out a broad analysis on the interdependencies that exist and, in particular, to determine the role of remittance income on growth. The vector auto regressive model was estimated using EViews software, and was used to come up with relevant insights. Empirical findings suggest the following: population growth, remittances, and labor force participation are insignificant factors for sustainable growth. On the other hand, previous levels of GDP, trade, and foreign direct investments (FDIs) appear to be relevant for the predictor. This research provides up-to-date conclusions, which can be considered during the decision-making process of central banks, as well as by government policymakers.


2021 ◽  
pp. 097639962097420
Author(s):  
Gaurav Bhattarai ◽  
Binita Subedi

The global economy has been severely paralysed, owing to the unprecedented crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and different studies have indicated that the crisis is relatively more maleficent to the lower-income and middle-income economies. Methodologically, this study relied on the review and analysis of the grey literature, media reporting and data published by the Asian Development Bank, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), United Nations (UN), World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) among others. The article begins by describing the impact of the pandemic on low-income and middle-income countries, and it discusses how they have responded to the crisis. While discussions have surfaced regarding whether COVID-19 will reverse the process of globalization, what will be its impact on the low-income country like Nepal? The study also highlights that with foreign direct investments speculated to shrink and foreign assistance and remittance taking a hit, how is Nepal struggling to keep its economy afloat? Analysing the new budget that the government unveiled in 2020, this study concludes with a note that instead of effectively implementing the plans and policies directed by the budget, Nepal is unnecessarily engaged in political mess and is needlessly being dragged into the geopolitical complications.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5866
Author(s):  
Muhammad Khalid Anser ◽  
Qasim Raza Syed ◽  
Hooi Hooi Lean ◽  
Andrew Adewale Alola ◽  
Munir Ahmad

Since the turn of twenty first century, economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and geopolitical risk (GPR) have escalated across the globe. These two factors have both economic and environmental impacts. However, there exists dearth of literature that expounds the impact of EPU and GPR on environmental degradation. This study, therefore, probes the impact of EPU and GPR on ecological footprint (proxy for environmental degradation) in selected emerging economies. Cross-sectional dependence test, slope heterogeneity test, Westerlund co-integration test, fully modified least ordinary least square estimator, dynamic OLS estimator, and augmented mean group estimator are employed to conduct the robust analyses. The findings reveal that EPU and non-renewable energy consumption escalate ecological footprint, whereas GPR and renewable energy plunge ecological footprint. In addition, findings from the causality test reveal both uni-directional and bi-directional causality between a few variables. Based on the findings, we deduce several policy implications to accomplish the sustainable development goals in emerging economies.


2021 ◽  
pp. 097135572098143
Author(s):  
Aizhan Tleuberdinova ◽  
Zhanat Shayekina ◽  
Dinara Salauatova ◽  
Stephen Pratt

Tourism development contributes to economic development. In emerging economies like Kazakhstan, tourism development needs active entrepreneurship. As the country emerges from the post-Soviet era, there has been an increase in economic development and prosperity. Entrepreneurship in the tourism sector can drive economies forward through the creation of new tourism and hospitality businesses. The macroeconomic environment can influence entrepreneurial activity. We use an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model to examine the impact of macroeconomic factors on tourism entrepreneurship in Kazakhstan. Using data from 1996 to 2018, we find that there is a positive short-run relationship between wages in the tourism sector and entrepreneurship, suggesting that wage growth in the sector attracts entrepreneurs. In the long run, however, tourism sector wages have a negative relationship with entrepreneurship, suggesting that these higher wages represent a higher cost to entrepreneurship. There is also a strong positive relationship between national income and tourism entrepreneurship in Kazakhstan. Implications of macroeconomic policy changes for Kazakhstan and other emerging economies are discussed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-100
Author(s):  
Svetoslav Georgiev ◽  
Emil Georgiev

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the evolution of top management’s understanding of product quality in Bulgaria since the end of communism. The study examines three specific areas: top management’s understanding of the term “quality”; top management’s understanding of the relationship between quality and business performance; and top management’s understanding of the impact of job position on quality. Design/methodology/approach The paper relies on a quantitative research approach by using data from a survey of 186 companies in Bulgaria. Findings The paper suggests that senior managers in Bulgaria continue to base their understanding of “quality” on a single approach (*a characteristic of the communist era), with the product-based and the user-based approaches currently being the two most common ones. At the same time, surprisingly enough, this study claims that senior management in Bulgaria is currently well aware of the importance of quality as a dimension of firm’s competitiveness, and is also highly conscious of its roles’ impact on product quality. Research limitations/implications The results of this study are exclusively based on the case of Bulgaria and must be treated with caution in the case of other former communist states from the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region. Practical implications This paper has relevance for both managers and companies doing business in Eastern Europe. Originality/value This is the first paper to provide detailed analysis of the evolution of the understanding of “product quality” in CEE since the end of communism. Moreover, this paper applies, for the first time, Garvin’s five approaches to defining quality within a practical context.


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