Musings From Abroad

China’s import of Kenyan avocados drops by 80%

Published

6 days ago

September 1, 2024

Kenya’s avocado exports to the lucrative Chinese market, which was just reopened, have decreased by 80% so far this year as exporters have given priority to more delectable markets in North America and Europe.

According to Chinese customs data, during the first seven months of the year, the amount of avocados imported from Kenya decreased to a mere 742,934 kilogrammes.

Compared to the 3,674,463 kilogrammes the Asian giant imported over a comparable period last year, this represents a significant decrease.

As a result, Kenyan avocado exporters’ profits from the Chinese market fell to $1,232,149 from $6,830,140 during the same period the previous year.

China is a small part of Kenya’s avocado market, but local exporters have been counting on its large population to boost sales and reduce Kenya’s dependency on the EU.

In August 2022, Kenya began exporting avocados to China, allowing Kenya’s fresh fruit exporters to reach the country’s enormous population of over 1.4 billion people.

For a considerable time, the Chinese government had been requesting permission to begin exporting avocados to Kenya, but with one restriction: Kenya could only send frozen fruits, not fresh ones.

Leading avocado exporter Kakuzi Plc, a company listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, recently stated that Kenyan avocados were becoming more popular as a result of the drop in avocado volumes from South American avocado giants like Peru and Mexico.

“While China, India, and the Middle East offer long-term growth possibilities, they currently lack the scale to substitute Europe. However, exploring these markets could provide a buffer against future market disruptions,” said Kakuzi Chairman Nicholas Ng’ang’a.

Related Topics:Avocado China Featured Kenya

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Musings From Abroad

UN indicts warring parties in Sudan, calls for peacekeepers

Published

19 hours ago

September 6, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

A United Nations-mandated panel stated on Friday that both sides in Sudan’s civil war had engaged in acts that may qualify as war crimes, and proposed that to protect civilians, international powers must expand the arms embargo and send in peacekeepers.

The report claimed to be based on 182 interviews with survivors, families, and witnesses. It detailed the rape, attacks, use of torture, and arbitrary arrests committed by Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) against civilians.

“The gravity of our findings and failure of the warring parties to protect civilians underscores the need for urgent and immediate intervention,” the U.N. fact-finding mission’s chair, Mohamed Chande Othman, told reporters.

Both parties have denied previous allegations by rights organisations and the United States and accused one another of abusing power. Neither stated in reaction to the allegations or answered enquiries for comment on Friday right away.

Othman and the other two mission members demanded the immediate deployment of an independent force.

“We cannot continue to have people dying before our eyes and do nothing about it,” mission member Mona Rishmawi said. A U.N.-mandated peacekeeping force was a possibility, she added.

The mission advocated for the extension of an arms embargo now in place by the United Nations, which only covers the western part of Darfur and the thousands of documented ethnic killings there. Fourteen of the eighteen states in the country have been affected by the conflict that began in Khartoum in April of last year.

According to the mission, there were also good reasons to suspect that the RSF and its affiliated militias had perpetrated other war crimes, including kidnapping women forcing them into prostitution and recruiting minors as fighters.

Unnamed support groups had received allegations of over 400 rapes in the first year of the war, but mission member Joy Ngozi Ezeilo said the actual number was likely considerably higher.

Musings From Abroad

Chinese investments in Africa mutually beneficial, South Africa’s Ramaphosa insists

Published

2 days ago

September 5, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, said Thursday that Chinese investments in Africa were mutually beneficial and not a “debt trap” for the continent.

Ramaphosa stated this on the sidelines of a China-Africa meeting in Beijing, with delegations from over 50 African states.

“I don’t necessarily buy the notion that when China (invests), it is with the intention of, in the end, ensuring that those countries end up in a debt trap or a debt crisis,” Ramaphosa said when asked by reporters about China’s pledge at the summit of $51 billion in new funding for Africa.

China pledged to launch three times more infrastructure projects in resource-rich Africa, a region of significant geopolitical conflict between China, Europe, and the US, and to provide financial support over three years.

Ramaphosa also said, without providing details, that South Africa and China have secured an energy security pact. He claimed South Africa could learn energy sector reform from China.

“They already have done exactly what we are seeking to do. So there are lessons for us to learn from China and how to do it,” he said.

Power outages have slowed economic progress in South Africa in recent years. The country plans to pursue China’s largest electric vehicle producers, Ramaphosa added.

“We had good exchanges with BYD, which has shown a great interest to come and invest in South Africa,” he said.

Africa and China have strengthened commercial and political ties in recent decades. China is a major trading partner and lender. Additionally, Chinese companies invested heavily in Africa, making it a major investor in the continent.