Word: africa
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Mauritius is the development darling of Africa. The IMF predicts its real GDP will grow 4.1% this year. Known for high-end tourism, Mauritius is making its mark as a hub of global business, with taxes at a uniform 15% for individuals and businesses, and regulations so streamlined it takes three days to set up a company and $200 a year in fees to run it. Woo's business, the Compagnie Mauricienne de Textile, founded in 1986, is part of that boom. Its Port Louis factory is so big that workers use roller skates to get around...
...Mauritius is good Africa, Angola is not. An élite cadre of government figures, Angolan bosses and foreign oil companies holds on to the soar-away gains of its 35% growth while the country stagnates in destitution and inflation. Partly that's due to the lack of a diversified economy to harness the oil wealth. As a foreign diplomat puts it, "If you're dying of thirst, you can't drink from a fire hose. The water comes out too fast." But it's also due to corruption: a 2004 Human Rights Watch report claimed that $4.22 billion...
...result, there are two populations within Angola. Private bankers fly in by the planeload, business hotels in Luanda are booked months in advance, and monthly rents in the business district are the highest in Africa, ranging from $54 to $108 per sq. ft. ($600 to $1,200 per sq m). Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people live in Luanda's slums, malaria and cholera are rife, and 70% of the population of 16 million subsist below the poverty line. Surveying the forest of cranes on Luanda's skyline, a foreign businessman describes the operating environment as opaque, corrupt and hamstrung...
...Africa become good Africa? Ari de Carvalho, a board member of ANIP, Angola's private-investment agency, thinks so. "Right now [the boom] benefits those who finance and carry out the projects," he admits. "But it will benefit the people in the long term." That's a minority view. Another Luanda-based observer says a change of course would require a change of government, but Angola's President José Eduardo dos Santos has not held an election since 1992. The observer describes the state as a ship heading for the reef of authoritarianism, corruption and popular discontent--a pattern seen...
...hope? Bad Africa can forge exceptional businessmen. Angola's prospects, in other words, rest on men like Cassalongo. "I'm going to make it," he says. "I take on challenges. And I work." And perhaps, so will Africa, good...