AFRICABIZ VOL 1 - ISSUE: 99/100
JULY 15 - SEPT 14, 2007
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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.

- THIS DELIVERY STANDS FOR TWO ISSUES

Africabiz Online's editorial team is taking one month break from August 1 to August 30. Therefore, this delivery covers two months: July 15 to August 14 - Issue N° 99 / Vol 1; and August 15 to September 14 - Issue N° 100 / Vol 1. The next issue N° 101 / Vol 2 will be online on September 15, 2007.

- THIS DELIVERY IS THE LAST ISSUE OF VOL-1

Yes. This is the last issue of Africabiz Online Volume-1. The challenge will continue with issue 101 Volume-2 to be posted online on September 15, 2007.

Africabiz's editorial team started back in 1997, to deliver this monthly issue (embedded into the Global issue), to convincing the international community of investors that the black continent is the right and best investment-destination for double-digit growth rates and profit margin. And to show to the Africans themselves that there is no African country that is intrinsically poor for there are innumerable dormant business opportunities which implementation could turn around the economy and generate prosperity for all.

The team lived up to the challenge. For 9 years running the magazine was posted online on time every 15th of the month. The team is still highly motivated to do the same for years to come and provide good content about business opportunities in African countries - and this for free. However, Dr. Quenum & Associates, IBC / BusinessAfrica (TM) Is a service company and cannot give everything for free as explained in following links: 36, 49.

The performance was made possible because the editorial team was focused on the job. Sorting out for each issue hundred of documentation webpages, analyzing them to deliver a compact and concise information webpages about business opportunities, productivity tips, editorial and strategic analysis.

Click here to read about: 10 Tips to Improve Team Focus, Morale and Results

- SERVICES AND PRODUCTS FROM Dr. QUENUM & ASSOCIATES / BUSINESSAFRICA (TM)

List of Products and Solutions to trading and investing in and out emerging nations - and particularly in sub-Saharan African nations - is here to review.

We draw your attention to Jobs & Projects' platform that assists first, project-owners to tender for the best experts to carry out projects at very competitive costs, and, second, job-seekers to publish for free Résumés/CV to attract project-owners attention.

The Pay-Per- Click advertisement platform is also the cheapest way to advertise for your business.

Dr. Quenum and Associates, IBC / BusinessAfrica (TM) have decided to follow Yahoo wise business practice - that is to establish business relationship only with clients who can produce email address linked to an ISP domain name or that could be traced back against a database of valid and legitimate domain names. In other words, from now on, only ISP-based email messages can expect replies from Dr. Quenum & Associates, IBC / BusinessAfrica (TM). For more on the matter, please visit this link.

- Contributor's Guidelines are here to review. Your contribution on "How emerging nations and particularly African countries / entrepreneurs could bridge the developing gap" is welcome.

Your feedback / objection / contribution is welcome. Visit WorldWide BizCenter, and choose General Information (as topic) to create a thread for discussion. On the top of the WorldWide BizCenter page, there is a HELP link to assist you making an efficient use of the discussion board. This link also is useful

Many thanks for dropping by and see you here on September 15, 2007.

Dr. B.M. Quenum
Editor of AFRICABIZ

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN AFRICA

- Several business opportunities - component parts of the Integrated Developing Scheme described in Africans, Stop Being Poor! are listed in following table.

a- SHEA BUTTER (5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13) b- BLUE GOLD (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19) c- FREEZE-DRIED PAPAIN (20, 21, 22 and here) d- KENAF (23, 24) e- VEGETABLE OIL (25, 26, 27, 28) f- CEREALS (30, 31, 32, 33) g- FRUITS (34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46) h- ESSENTIAL OILS (47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52) i- ROOTS & TUBERS (54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64) j- FOWL BREEDING (66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76) k- FISH FARMING (78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87) l- BIOMASS ENERGY (89, 90, 91, 92) m- SUGAR CANE & PRODUCTS (93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99/100, 101,

- SUGAR CANE & PRODUCTS: PART VII - A MEDIUM-SCALE OPERATION TO MANUFACTURING BROWN SUGAR - B - ECONOMICS

This series' first issue outlined the importance of sugar-cane as Economic Catalyst to developing. The current delivery deals briefly with the economics of a labor intensive medium-scale operation - to produce brown sugar from sugarcane juice - as an alternative to a capital intensive facility.

Sugarcane juice is used for making white sugar, brown sugar (Khandsari), Jaggery (Gur) and ethanol. The main byproducts of sugar industry are bagasse and molasses - as per the production's flow chart available here - courtesy of amproexport.com

Sugarcane contains about 700kg of juice, in which sucrose and other substances are held in solution, and 300 kg of bagasse. Important points to remember during crushing are:

(1) Cane must be crushed within 24 hours of being cut. After this time the sugar begins to 'invert' into different sugars that will solidify very slowly or not at all. (2) Crushing efficiency is the most important factor to getting good sugar yields.

Every possible amount of juice needs to be squeezed from the cane - in order also to have bagasses that are easy to dry.

- SIZING-UP THE FACILITY

Investment estimates are based on a modern technology - yet affordable - Open Pan Boiling/ Evaporating System (click here for more) that uses also "intensive" labor to establishing medium-scale operations to producing brown sugar. This technology permits the standardization of the production through a perfect control of the boiling process contrary to "traditional" processing methods used since ages in Asian countries.

The production chart flow shows that the centrifugal process yields 50 kg of lightly colored brownsugar and about 80 kg of brownsugar (melted) with molasses - from one ton of sugarcane sticks / or from 700 liters of fresh sugarcane juice.

In addition to the sugarcane-stick's crushing machine, another important equipment is the centrifugal machine. This is a batch type machine, which separates sugar and molasses by centrifugal action. Liquid molasses pass through very small holes of the screen fixed on periphery, while sugar crystals bigger than the screen's holes do not pass through. These sugar crystals are washed by water or steam sprinkling. Light-brown sugar is then dried under the sun, and molasses are reboiled for jaggery / muscovado manufacturing.

Based on investment data exposed here about a small-scale sugarcane juice production facility, a sugarcane-stick crusher produce 300 liters per hour of fresh sugarcane juice. That is 2,400 liters of fresh sugarcane juice daily / 24 days per month over 11 months. In other words 633,600 liters over an operational year/ around 633 metric tons of fresh sugarcane juice and 95 metric tons of dried bagasse. That operation will need 4 operating workers.
 
A facility as above briefly described would produce 45,214kg of lightly colored brown sugar [50kg x 633,000/700], and 72,342kg of muscovado [80kg x 633,000/700]. In total a production of brown sugar amounting to 117 metric tons per year. This operation would need three more production workers than the one dedicated solely to sugarcane juice production. That is 7 operating workers, plus a technician/ manager and two more hands. 10 people in total.

- INVESTMENT ESTIMATE AND OPERATING EXPENSES

Below are listed investment estimate and operating expenses under conditions exposed in previous paragraph (and in issues: 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98):

Items	US$
INVESTMENT
1- Processing area: 150 sq. meter for crushing area and storage-	750
2- Processing Equipment: One sugarcane-stick peeler, one crusher, one centrifugal equipment, 3 big plastic containers - 250 liters each plastic container, a 5 KW steam-powered generating set using  bagasse as feeder), cleaning brushes and water hose. Etc.	45,000
3- Other Equipment: Shelters, solid state plastic sheet, one delivery truck with flat deck. handling equipment. Etc.	13,000
4- Starting expenses: Comprehensive feasibility study / business plan for the processing plant. Etc.	6,200
Total investment	64,200
PRODUCTION LEVEL
1- lightly coloured brown sugar = 45 metric tons per year. 2- Jaggery/ Muscovado = 72 metric tons per year.
OPERATING COSTS
Operational Expenses: Raw material (around 745 metric tons of fresh sugarcane sticks per year or 2,821 metric tons per day - purchased at 30$US per metric ton), harvesting, handling and transport to processing floor - production costs - insurance - utilities - staff and hands / management salaries - amortization - interests on loan. Etc.	70,000
Cost of production off plant for one metric ton of brown sugar	598

This is an excellent cost of production as one kg of white sugar costs up to triple in most of African countries that do not produce sugar.

Next delivery (Issue 101/ Sept 15, 2007) will show how a network of medium scale producers can cater for and feed an African country with good quality and nutritive brownsugar, assist in the industrialization process in rural areas, create thousand of jobs and save foreign currency - contrary to a big "high tech" production facility that yields the same global sugar tonnage as medium-scale producers.

MORE ON SUGAR CANE & PRODUCTS

1- Sugar Cane Industry, The (Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography) by J.H. Galloway (Paperback Sep 23, 2005) 2- The House Surrounded by Sugar by Leanna Williams (Paperback - Mar 8, 2006) 3- From Cane to Sugar (Start to Finish) by Jill Braithwaite (Hardcover - Aug 2004) 4- Cane Sugar Handbook: A Manual for Cane Sugar Manufacturers and Their Chemists by James C. P. Chen and Chung Chi Chou (Hardcover - Nov 8, 1993) 5- Sugar Cane by Alex Morgan (Paperback - Aug 28, 2002) 6- The Sugar cane factory: A catechism of cane sugar manufacture for the use of beginners by Frederic I Scard (Unknown Binding - 1913) 7- Sugar Cane Cultivation and Management by Henk, Bakker and H., Bakker (Hardcover - Jan 1, 1999)

8- Sugar Cane (Tropical Agriculturalist) by R. Fauconnier (Paperback - Feb 24, 1993) 9- Management Accounting for the Sugar Cane Industry (Sugar Sciences, Vol 8) by A. E. Fok Kam (Hardcover - Mar 1988) 10- The nature and properties of the sugar cane With practical directions for the improvement of its cultures, and the manufacture of its products) by George Richardson Porter (Unknown Binding - 1831) 11- Sugar-cane and Sugar Industry in Nigeria The Bitter Sweet Lessons by Abdul-latif D. Busari (Paperback - Nov 2005) 12- The 2007-2012 World Outlook for Sugar Cane Mill Products by Philip M. Parker (Paperback - Oct 13, 2006)

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