AFRICABIZ VOL 1- ISSUE : 30
OCTOBER 15 - NOVEMBER 14, 2001
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Editor: Dr. Bienvenu-Magloire Quenum
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A WORD FROM THE EDITOR

Dear visitor and international investor,

We warmly welcome you, if this is your first visit to Africabiz Online - The ultimate newsletter on trading and investing in 49 sub-Saharan African countries. If you are a regular and faithful reader, welcome back.

If you are a regular and faithful reader, welcome back.

After one month break from September 1 to September 30, 2001 we are back to work. More motivated than ever to delivering to you, each month, business opportunities which have the intrinsic potential of helping African countries and entrepreneurs bridge the developing gap existing between Africa and the world at large.

Since thirty months we kept on demonstrating that, contrary to the common belief, Africa is the only virgin territory left over for high Return On Investment (ROI). In fact the highest in the world : 29% of annual rate of return on book value.

All our successive contributions to asserting the above outlined "ignored" fact are summarized in our last delivery available here.

We have also demonstrated here, through a case study, that any African country could easily perform economic growth rate in the double digit range in accordance with Pr. Moses Abramowitz Catch Up theory.

And thus, from now on, our "Business Opportunity of The Month" section (available here for this delivery), will be dedicated to expanding and putting more flesh to the several business opportunities which are components of The Strategy for African Countries and capable of triggering the "Synergetic Impact Factor".

In line with our constant effort to always share with you the best bargains available on the Internet we have setup a Communications Center for you and linked it to many pages of AFRICABIZ ONLINE and AFRICABIZ CONSULTING / Dr. Quenum & Associates.

From a single webpage, you have access to the best rates for :

a - Long Distance b - Calling Cards c - Pagers d - Callbacks e - Voice On The Internet f - Satellite TV g - Global Security Hardware h - Internet Services i - Computers Bargains

Click here to review Contributor's Guidelines. Your contribution is welcome.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW WORLD

During our vacation period, tremendous dramatic events occurred: The suicide "Airlines-bombing" attacks on the Twin Sisters at New York City and the Pentagon at Washington D.C. USA.

AFRICABIZ editorial team presents its sincere condolences to all those who had suffered dearly from the disaster.

Yes, the death toll, subsequent to the suicide attacks, is so high that each of us, worldwide, had lost either a friend, a sister, a brother, a fiancee, a wife, a husband, a mother, a father, an uncle, an aunt, a nephew, a niece, a business partner and or a job. One way or another the whole world is concerned about the cataclysmal occurrence.

The world will never be the same as before September 11, 2001. The shockwave of the disaster is doubtless going to shape world politics, economy and culture for at least the coming decade, and have a persisting global impact on the whole 21th. century Click here for more on our analysis about the dramatic event of September 11, 2000.

Many thanks for dropping by and see you here on November 15, 2001.

Dr. B.M. Quenum
Editor of AFRICABIZ

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN AFRICA

In our former deliveries we introduced you to several business opportunities with high profit making potential which are economic catalysts and components of the Development Strategy for African Countries - here available. They are listed in the following table :

a- SHEA BUTTER (Issues 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13) b- BLUE GOLD (Issues 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19) c- FREEZE-DRIED PAPAIN (Issues 20, 21, 22) d- KENAF (Issues 23, 24) e- VEGETABLE OIL (Issues 25, 26, 27 and 28)

The vegetable oil series help us demonstrating how to boost up the global economic development of any emerging African country and subsequently obtain annual economic growth rate in the double digit bracket for 10 to 20 years running. The complete study on "How to reach double digit annual growth rate" is here available.

Now that the feasibility of such an outstanding performance for any African country is established, we feel comfortable to exposing the other main axis of the Development Strategy for African Countries : the cereals.

To illustrate cereals potential in a successful development scheme nothing compares to Sorghum. In fact any African country which is really serious about boosting up its economy should consider diversification into Sorghum development.

Indeed Sorghum is called "Life Saver" in China. It is a major crop grown in semiarid and arid regions of Africa and Asia. It is used since ages in sub-Saharan Africa's arid regions as staple food. The most cultivated species are : grain sorghum, sweet sorghum, forage sorghum and craft sorghum.

Sorghum is a plant unique in that it combines high tolerance to drought with adaptation to waterlogged field, saline-alkali infertile soil and high temperatures. Its short production cycle (88/115-166 days) permits two crops per year. That is an important asset compared to sugar cane for instance even if sorghum' sugar syrup does not crystallize as well if not at all (depending of the specie) as sugar cane one. Click here for more.

SORGHUM: AN INCOME BUILDING POWER FOR AFRICAN RURAL COMMUNITIES.

PART I: INTRODUCTION TO SORGHUM AS ECONOMIC CATALYST

Diagram below is an eye catching illustration of the potential of Sorghum as "Economic Catalyst". At one glance one can see that the diversification of the economy to Sorghum development is a sure recipe to boosting the economic growth of any African country.

		Sorghum Beer		Fermentation		Ethanol
		Liquid				Sugar Syrup
Sweet Sorghum		Press		Pulp		Paper
		Solid Residue		Pyrolysis		Bio-Fuel
				Compost		Manure / Fertilizer

Let's consider some of the several products resulting from the transformation of Sweet Sorghum which are listed in the above diagram :

1- SORGHUM BEER

Sorghum beer is a popular traditional beverage throughout many sub-Saharan African countries. It is traditionally home made in most African rural areas. However, since quite 30 years it had been more or less outclassed by imported or locally industrially made European barley / lager beer.

An interesting introduction to traditional made African sorghum beer by Richard Okambawa, is available at the following link.

In Central / Northeast Benin sorghum beer is called Shakpalo. The stuff is quite the same as traditional Bantu beer produced in Southern Africa, Pombe (East Africa) Dolo (Burkina Faso, Mali), Burukutu (Nigeria), Pito (Ghana and Nigeria), Bouza (Egypt, Ethiopia), Merisa (Sudan), Hemeket or Zythum or Zythos, last word of the dictionary (Ancient Egypt), Shukutu (Benin and Togo), Tchakpalo (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire), Bil-Bil (Cameroon). Click here for Countries Briefs

According to Richard Okambawa the traditionally home made beverage has a full body, long aftertaste, a fruity, pleasantly sour taste, with a complex estery and organic acid flavor; yoghourt and sorghum aroma. It is very thirst-quenching, cloudy and yeasty, with a brownish pink color. The alcohol content ranges from 1 to 8% by volume. A fresh beer bubbles, contains 3 to 4 % alc. / vol. and 6 % of solid particles. The traditional form of the product has a short shelf life and must be consumed within a few days after ~ 24 h of fermentation.

In the contrary, Chinese made sorghum beer is similar (color, flavor and quality) to industrially made European barley based beer.

There is in Southern Africa (Zimbabwe and South Africa in particular) an industrial made brand with proprietary technology.

2- SOLID RESIDUES

Residues originating from the crushing of sweet sorghum grain are suitable to produce a wide range of steamed, boiled, baked, parched and glutinous products. A porridge for child feeding is used in African rural areas.

All components of sorghum plant have an useful usage: root (fuel); stalk (fuel, mat, hat, building materials, frame materials, and barrier,) peduncle (cover,) threshed (spike broom, potscouring brush). As per Chinese say, Sorghum is a real "Life Saver."

3- ETHANOL

Alcohol / Ethanol is the resulting product if Sorghum Beer fermentation is carried out to finish. There is a huge market in African countries for Ethanol which is actually imported from overseas for hospitals and clinics operational needs, and maintenance purposes. Ethanol itself is a versatile product to producing a long list of industrial chemical products. It is a highly performing solvent for agro industries's preparations.

4- SUGAR SYRUP

As Sugarcane Sweet Sorghum stores considerable amount of sugar in its stalk. However Sweet Sorghum does have an advantage vis-à-vis sugarcane: 1 - Its stalk is more richer in carbohydric fibers; 2 - Reproduction is made with seeds and not cut stalks; 3 - Its growth period is only half of sugar cane.

Over centuries, China had developed proprietary technology to transforming Sweet Sorghum stalks into sugar syrup. Chinese have even succeeded in producing crystalline sugar from Sweet Sorghum syrup. That technology is only few decades old and leads to the following sequence of products: 1 - Yellow granulated sugar; 2 - Brown granulated; 3 - Sugar and syrup. The quality of these products are up to international standard requirements. The total sugar in crystalline sugar can generally reach about 92 percent (82.09 percent sucrose+10.5 percent reducing sugar), and water content is about 7 percent (4). The sugar extracting productivity with sweet sorghum stalks is about 4 percent.

5- PAPER MANUFACTURING

Sorghum leaves and stalks are raw materials suitable to manufacturing grass family paper pulp; which can be used to manufacture writing paper (rough straw paper), wrapping paper, and other paper products.

In addition, as show on the graph above, part of residues generated by sugar refining of sweet sorghum stalks are also used for paper manufacturing. Compared to other raw materials (wood and other cellulose raw materials) used in paper manufacturing, sorghum leaves and stalks are easier to convert into pulp. They even have the paramount advantage of requesting smaller usage of chemical ingredients during the pulping process. The resulting pulp being more homogeneous, smooth and malleable the paper made from sorghum stalks and leaves show strong transparency and brittleness plus poor folding and bursting.

-Brief exposure made above about Sorghum potential and versatility to producing edible products and other industrial byproducts and finished products show clearly that we are dealing with an "economic catalyst" which can be used as a perfect "Income Building Power" operation to boosting the economic growth of any African country.

Transformation processes can be undertaken on small, medium or large scale basis for any of the above mentioned lines of products.

Successive coming deliveries of this series about Sorghum As Income Building Power for an African Community will be dedicated to:

1- Small / Medium scale operation on sorghum beer manufacturing; 2- Medium / Large scale operation to producing ethanol, sugar syrup and other byproducts as per graph above.

- Interested parties - private African and international investors / companies, government agencies, international development agencies - to make contact through the Free Access Support Console available at this link

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