Multinational companies and governments around the world are increasingly looking to Africa as a new business destination. Africa's economy has grown at a rate of around 5.3% per year over the last decade and six of the world's ten fastest growing economies are located here. These countries have a fast-growing middle class that contributes to rapid urbanization that is increasing faster than their cities' infrastructure can keep up. It is a common misconception that many economies in Africa are heavily dependent on energy production. In reality, the oil and gas sector accounted for only 11% of Nigeria's GDP in 2014, while the construction sector accounted for 20%.
When considering doing business in Africa, it is not a matter of choosing just one country or all 54; A regional approach makes more sense. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, refers to sub-Saharan countries such as Angola, Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria. Many companies already doing business in Africa are separating their businesses in North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa due to the stark economic, linguistic and cultural differences between the two regions. Here are our top 5 African countries for doing business:
Mauritius Mauritius is known for offering an extremely favorable business environment for investment and business growth. The process of incorporating a company and starting new business activities in Mauritius is believed to be straightforward and relatively easy. Mauritius' economy is mainly based on textiles, tourism, sugar and financial services, although recently other sectors such as renewable energy and information technology are expanding rapidly. The World Bank ranked Mauritius 49th in its Doing Business 2017 ranking, largely due to its pro-business approach to dealing with building permits, enforcing contracts and protecting minority investors. Another ranking of African countries places Mauritius first based on factors such as law and security, economy, human development and human rights.
Rwanda Despite nearly a decade of Rwanda's civil war, the country's leaders and citizens alike have worked to achieve a healthy business climate and a strong overall economy. According to the World Bank, Rwanda is the second easiest place to do business in Africa and ranks 56th in the Doing Business ranking. This is because the procedures for registering a property, obtaining credit and trading across borders have been greatly simplified. Tourism is currently the fastest growing sector in Rwanda. According to our research, businesses can be incorporated and operating in as little as three days.
Botswana Since gaining independence, Botswana has had one of the fastest per capita economic growth rates in the world. As the government works to diversify the country's profitable industries, the mining of diamonds and other precious metals is currently the main contributor to the country's economy. Recently, Botswana has managed to reduce the time it takes for various processes including import and export and business formation procedures. In addition, technological upgrades have reduced the average court length for commercial disputes to 625 days (from 987 days in 2008). Thanks to these improvements, Botswana ranks 71st in the World Bank's Doing Business 2017 ranking.
South Africa South Africa's key industries are automobile manufacturing, tourism, mining and information and communication technologies. South Africa has managed to simplify its import and export procedures, resulting in less time and fewer documents required. In addition, the South African authorities have simplified tax legislation, reducing the number of hours required to prepare tax reports. The World Bank ranked South Africa 74th for ease of doing business in 2017.
Kenya Another country to keep an eye on is Kenya, which is currently making huge investments in sectors such as telecom, transport and energy. With a tech-savvy workforce and high-speed internet, Kenya stands out as one of the top countries in Africa for tech startups, while its diversified economy, strong ownership rights, excellent tourism sector and improving infrastructure make it a great location for general start a new company. If you have further questions about company formation or banking in Africa. Please contact us now.
Know Your Client, also known as KYC, refers to numerous due diligence activities performed not only by financial institutions but also other regulated companies in order to retrieve any relevant information about their clients before and in the course of doing business with them. Every financial and business entity is responsible for adopting and implementing various KYC procedures and regulations.
Collecting and analysing a person's identity information and looking into the real beneficiary of the company and business accounts Name-matching with lists of political parties (searching for Politically Exposed persons or PEPs) Determining a client's likelihood of committing money laundering, terrorist financing, identity theft or other offences Creating expectation profiles based on a client's transactional behaviour, and monitoring any deviations from this profile Anti-money laundering, also known as AML, is a set of laws, regulations and other procedures designed to eliminate the practice of generating income from illegal activity. Typically, money launderers hide the real source of their income through a series of steps that make it look like money derived from illegal activities was earned legitimately. Anti-money laundering policies aim to help institutions spot and look into possible cases.
Globalisation and the global information exchange system KYC and AML policies are designed to offer solutions for eliminating the numerous risks deriving from the fact that financial institutions do not know their clients. On the other hand, these same policies also have a tendency to conflict with a private individual's general expectations of confidentiality and privacy.
With the rapid advance of globalisation over the last few decades, security concerns have become a top priority, not only for national regulators, but for the international community more generally. In response to rising concerns over money laundering, an intergovernmental organisation called the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) was established in 1989 during the G7 summit in Paris, and shortly afterwards it issued recommendations on money laundering and terrorism financing. All the recommendations are intended to be put into action at a national level through legislation and other legally binding measures. In addition to the Know Your Client and Anti-money laundering procedures described above, FATF recommendations require states to co-operate internationally and exchange relevant information in investigations.
A new international standard, called AEOI or the automatic exchange of information, will come into force in participating countries to ensure that tax authorities exchange data relating to taxpayers' bank accounts. The main goal of AEOI is to make tax evasion impossible. AEOI stipulates that banks must report information about bank and safekeeping accounts to the domestic tax authorities. This information is then exchanged with the tax authorities in AEOI partner countries.
Possible solutions to protect confidentiality Some jurisdictions consider revealing the name of an account holder to be a criminal act. The privacy of a bank's clients is protected by law and regarded as being similar in nature to the confidentiality between doctor and patient or lawyer and client. Although privacy is seen as a fundamental principle and greatly protected in these jurisdictions, law enforcement access can be granted to the relevant information in the context of a criminal investigation.
However, if no criminal accusation has been made, offshore banks offer the maximum possible confidentiality and security. Offshore banking jurisdictions are designed to protect assets from domestic litigation and other civil matters, such as contested estates or divorce. An even higher level of confidentiality and anonymity is available through other asset-holding vehicles — for example, international business companies and offshore trusts.
Another way to increase your privacy is by using a nominee, so that your name does not appear in the company register as the owner of your company (nominee services). However, any bank that requires the beneficiaries of the company to be disclosed would still see your name on the list.
The total population of Malta is 432,089 people. The people of Malta speak English and Maltese. The linguistic diversity of Malta is vaguely diverse according to a fractionation scale, which is 0.0907 for Malta. The average age is around 40.9 years. Life expectancy in Malta is 81 years. The female fertility rate in Malta is 1.4. Around 29% of Malta's population is obese. Ethnic diversity is nearly uniform according to a fractionation scale, which stands at 0.0414 for Malta. Details of the language, religion, age, gender distribution and advancement of the people of Malta can be found in the sections below, as well as the section on education in the country.
Population In Malta, the population density is 1321 people per square kilometer (3437 per square mile). Based on these statistics, this country is considered to be very densely populated. The total population of Malta is 432,089 people. Malta has approximately 41,442 foreign immigrants. Immigrants in Malta make up 0.1 percent of the total number of immigrants worldwide. Immigrants in Malta make up 8 percent of the total number of immigrants in the world. The ethnic diversity of Malta is nearly uniform according to a fractionation scale based on ethnicity. Ethnic fractionation (EF) is concerned with the number, size, socioeconomic distribution, and geographic location of different cultural groups, usually within a state or other defined area. Specific cultural characteristics can refer to language, skin color, religion, ethnicity, customs and traditions, history, or other distinctive criteria, alone or in combination. These characteristics are often used for social exclusion and power monopolization. The index of ethnic fractionation in Malta is 0.0414. This means that the population living in Malta is somewhat fragmented. EF is usually measured as 1 minus the Herfindahl concentration index of ethnolinguistic group proportions, which reflects the probability that two randomly selected individuals from the population belong to different groups. The theoretical maximum of EF of 1 means that each person belongs to a different group. Below are statistics for Malta on average age and gender distribution at different ages.
Old The average age is around 40.9 years. The average age of men is 39.7 years, while the average age of women is 42.1 years.
Gender The sex ratio, or number of males per female (estimated at birth), is 1.06. It can be further broken down into the following categories: sex ratio under 15 – 1.06; sex ratio from 15 to 64 - 1.03; sex ratio over 64 - 0.76; Overall sex ratio - 0.99. The overall sex ratio differs from the sex ratio estimated at birth. This is due to the fact that some newborns are included in the estimated sex ratio at birth, but die within the first few weeks of their lives and are not included in the overall sex ratio.
Religion The majority religion in Malta is Christianity, adherents to which make up 97% of all believers in the country. Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as set forth in the New Testament. Christianity is the largest religion in the world with over 2.4 billion followers known as Christians. Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind, whose coming as Christ or Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. In addition to Christianity, there are several other religions in the country. Other religions in Malta are Islam and folk religions. The religious diversity of Malta is vaguely diverse according to a fractionation scale based on the number of religions in Malta. The index of religious fractionation in Malta is 0.1223. This value means that within the country there is one major belief with some other minor beliefs.
Austria is considered a large country due to its total area. Its total land area is 83,871 km² (about 32,383 mi²). The continental shelf of Austria is approximately 0 km². Austria is in Europe. Europe is a continent whose borders date back to ancient times. European countries include the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Malta and the Vatican, among others. Austria has 8 neighboring countries. Its neighbors include the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. Austria is a landlocked country. The average altitude range of Austria is 910 m (2,986 ft).
Neighbors The total length of land borders of Austria is 2524 kilometers (~975 miles). Austria shares land borders with 8 different countries and has the same number of unique land borders with neighboring territories. If, as in the case of Austria, a country has the same number of distinct neighboring areas as land borders, then that country does not have non-contiguous sections of a land border. This is in contrast to several countries that have multiple non-contiguous stretches of land borders. Austria has 8 neighboring countries. Its neighbors include the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland. The lengths of Austria's national borders with its neighboring countries are as follows:
Czech Republic - 362 km (225 miles), Germany - 784 km (487 mi), Hungary - 366 km (227 mi), Italy - 430 km (267 miles), Liechtenstein - 35 km (22 miles), Slovakia - 91 km (57 mi), Slovenia - 330 km (205 miles), Switzerland - 164 km (102 miles).
Cities The capital of Austria is Vienna. The largest cities in Austria are Vienna, Graz, Linz and Salzburg.
Elevation The average altitude range of Austria is 910 m (2,986 ft). The highest point in Austria is the Großglockner with an official height of 3798 m (12,461 ft). The lowest point in Austria is Lake Neusiedl. It is 115 m (377 ft) above sea level. The difference in altitude between the highest (Großglockner) and lowest (Neusiedlersee) point in Austria is 3683 m (2 ft).
Area The total area of Austria is 83,871 km² (approx. 32,383 mi²). and the total Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is 0 km² (~0 mi²). The continental shelf of Austria is approximately 0 km². Including landmass and EEZ, the total area of Austria is approx. 83,871 km² (~32,383 mi²). Austria is considered a large country due to its total area.
Forest and farmland 39,600 km² of Austria's territory is covered with forest, and forested areas make up 47% of the country's total area. There are 13,677 km² of arable land in Austria, which accounts for 16% of the country's total area.