CAPE VERDE: Cape Verde's Tourism Growing Rapidly

Since the beginning of this year, Cape Verde's tourism sector has been growing rapidly after a year of low revenues. The sector is a main factor behind Cape Verde's projected 6 percent GDP growth in 2010.

In 2009, Cape Verde's tourism-driven economy basically reached a stand-still. There were major concerns that the global crisis, which hit many of Cape Verde's main tourist markets especially hard, would dramatically reduce tourist arrivals to this long distance destination and halt investments in the booming hotel and holiday apartment construction industry.

Indeed, GDP growth in 2009 was reduced to 3 percent. Corrected for population growth, GDP per capita in Cape Verde thus grew by only 0.2 percent - a veritable halt in growth - according to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Cape Verdean Ministry of Finance.

During the crisis year, foreign direct investment and remittances from Cape Verdeans abroad slowed - as feared. Also revenues from the tourism industry decreased and the transportation and construction sectors contracted. Only the strong rains, providing for record harvests, managed to save a positive GDP development.

Nevertheless, the Cape Verdean tourism industry in an exemplary way managed to manoeuvre through the crisis. The industry "maintained solid growth in the number of hotel nights by slashing prices," according to an IMF analysis.

According to statistics from the Bank of Cape Verde, tourism receipts peaked in 2007 and 2008. In these two years, revenues from tourists accounted for around 22 percent of Cape Verde's GDP. In 2009 and 2010, tourism receipts are projected at only 17 percent of GDP.

But, buy reducing prices, Cape Verde managed to recruit a large number of new tourists to the archipelago during 2009 and the first half of 2010. This is now starting to pay out.

An IMF mission led by analyst Valerie Cerra, staying two weeks in Cape Verde tourist arrivals and spending
While the numbers of tourists went up during the crisis, tourists spent much less during their stay in Cape Verde

Praia, yesterday announced its new, optimistic view of developments on the archipelago. Ms Cerra concludes that Cape Verde's economy already has started on a new round of strong growth, mainly driven by the recovery of the tourism sector.

"The tourism sector stabilised in the first half of the year, and is poised for solid growth in the second half," Ms Cerra said in a statement. Government could now go on investing in "much needed infrastructure in ports and airports" to further help strengthening the tourism sector, she added.

The Fund's analysts also expect foreign investments in Cape Verde to pick up strongly this or next year. Such investments, mostly related to the tourism sector, would provide for a new round of growth for the Cape Verdean construction sector.

These optimistic outlooks related to the tourism industry are already expected to provide for a full recovery of Cape Verde's economy and GDP growth. Only in July, the IMF was still rather pessimistic about a strong growth in the Cape Verdean economy during 2010. The July projection put GDP growth this year to a modest 4.1 percent.

This weekend, however, Cape Verde's Finance Minister Cristina Duarte could reveal an upscaled growth projection for this year. Quoting an analysis by the National Statistics Institute, Ms Duarte said the national economy had already "entered a positive trend" and that GDP would grow by around 6 percent this year.

According to the Ministry and the IMF, this is only the beginning of a period with strong growth in Cape Verde. Between 2011 and 2015, the Fund expects annual growth rates of at least 6 percent and up to 8 percent. The tourism industry will remain the main motor of growth.

EGYPT: Egypt Struggles To Preserve Heritage And Tourism

With a shaky economy following years of unrest and a huge drop in tourists, Egypt is struggling to preserve its fabled archaeological heritage.

From Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast to the Great Pyramid of Giza and Aswan to the south, the North African country is home to impressive ancient monuments.

For years, the sites were able to rely on a steady stream of ticket sales to finance their upkeep.

But since Egypt's 2011 revolution, the number of tourists visiting the country has dwindled, leaving authorities scrambling to make up for lost revenues.

"Since January 2011, our revenues have fallen sharply, which had a strong effect on the state of Egyptian monuments," Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Enany said.

From more than 15 million in 2010, the number of tourists visiting Egypt dropped to 6.3 million in 2015.

Jan 10, 2017

Years of political tumult after the 2011 uprising that unseated strongman Hosni Mubarak and a jihadist insurgency following the army's 2013 overthrow of his Islamist successor Mohamed Morsi have discouraged many from visiting.

Revenue from entrance tickets to historical sites dropped to about US$38 million (S$55 million) in 2015, from about $220 million in 2010.

"It's catastrophic," said Ms Fayza Haikal, an Egyptologist and professor at the American University of Cairo.

Mr Zahi Hawass an archeologist and former Antiquities minister, said the country's heritage has suffered as a result.

"With the lack of funding, you cannot restore anything. Look at the Cairo museum. It's dark," he said, referring to the famed Egyptian Museum in the capital's Tahrir Square.

"And you cannot ask the government to support you because the economy is not that good. And antiquities are deteriorating everywhere," he said.

Administering the country's antiquities takes about 38,000 employees, including on-site workers, technicians, Egyptologists and inspectors, the ministry says.

The government has relied on foreign handouts since Morsi's overthrow, and finally decided to float the pound last year as part of an economic reform programme connected to a loan from the International Monetary Fund.

An important part of an economic revival would include the return of tourism, a main hard currency earner for Egypt.

Until then, Mr Enany is trying to limit the damage. "I try to do extra activities to increase revenue," he said.

For example, the Egyptian Museum, home to the golden mask of Tutankhamun and mummies of pharaohs, now stays open into the night, he said.

Annual passes are also available to encourage Egyptians to visit the sites. Patrons and archaeological missions still contribute to the preservation of Egypt's ancient heritage, but the funds cannot cover everything. "Priority is given to restoration," said Ms Haikal.

"But there are excavations that have been stopped due to lack of funding."

The excavations "have waited for 5,000 years and can wait," she said, but important restoration work has also been delayed.

"At the very least we identify what needs restoration, and we do the minimum to keep them in a proper state."

Mr Enany is also pushing for granting public access to more sites, as was done with the recently opened tombs of Nefertari and Seti I in Luxor.

The Malawi museum in the southern province of Minya has also been reopened, after a mob looted it during the unrest following Morsi's overthrow.

The Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza pyramids should also be opened, at least partially, in 2018.

Mr Hawass, who advises Mr Enany, says the minister needs more support and also for authorities to think beyond Egypt by undertaking exhibitions abroad.

"Why leave Tutankhamun in the Cairo museum, in a dark area. No one sees it," he said. "Tutankhamun can bring money!"

MOZAMBIQUE: Poaching Benefiting North Korea’s Political Leadership

The fatal breach in South Africa’s defence against rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park is Mozambique – and corrupt diplomats are continually widening it.

According to a study just released by Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, the country is incapable of disrupting the criminal syndicates that have turned it into a major trans-shipment point for rhino horn, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and dagga. The value of illegal drug trade in Mozambique, it claims, is probably greater than all foreign aid combined.

Global Initiative rhino investigator Julian Rademeyer found that the corruption permeating every level of the Mozambique state and the country’s leaky ports, airports and borders made it a smuggler’s paradise. Of great concern is what he describes as “dodgy diplomats”, particularly North Koreans, using this weakness to smuggle illicit products.

Once hailed as a post-civil war success story, Mozambique, he says, is a country in crisis, paralysed by rampant corruption, a weak judiciary, an ineffectual and criminally compromised police force, and powerful criminal syndicates with tentacles reaching into every level of the state.

Many of Mozambique’s political elite, according to Global Initiative, have grown fat on the proceeds of the patronage networks that grew and festered for a decade under the country’s former president, Armando Guebuza.

“His successor, Filipe Nyusi, is still grappling with Guebuza’s toxic legacy and, more than a year since he took office, has yet to solidify control over the state and Frelimo, the ruling party.”

Added to Mozambique’s problems is its role as a key regional money-laundering hub, a dramatic increase in kidnappings-for-ransom and a series of high profile assassinations that, among others, have claimed the lives of a judge, journalists and, most recently, a prosecutor.

“There is a very real sense of fear within the judiciary and government,” a diplomat based in Maputo told Global Initiative. “People don’t want to rock the boat because they could be next.”

In May this year the country was also rocked by revelations that the government had tried to conceal close to $1.4-billion in hidden loans from donor countries and agencies. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the European Union (EU), African Development Bank, and several other donors suspended aid “pending a full disclosure and assessment of the facts”.

An IMF official said the concealment “is probably one of the largest cases of the provision of inaccurate data by a government the IMF has seen in an African country in recent times”. Mozambique is heavily dependent on foreign aid.

Conservationists in South Africa and Mozambique say they are encouraged by the work done by Mozambique’s National Agency for Conservation Areas, but are frustrated by the lack of progress from the Mozambican police in apprehending key poaching and trafficking ringleaders.

“Policing is abysmal,” said a Mozambican conservationist. “There’s enough evidence to arrest and prosecute. We know who the key figures are. They are very well known. Despite that, we are not able to arrest any of the poaching gang leaders.”

The Global Initiative report highlights the increasing role and impunity of North Korean diplomats in criminal activities in the southern African region. An example was the arrest, in Maputo in May 2015, of a North Korean diplomat and a Taekwon-Do instructor after 4.5kg of rhino horn and $100,000 was found in their vehicle. Police detained them and impounded the vehicle.

Within hours of learning of the incident, the North Korean ambassador to South Africa, Yong Man-ho, was on a flight from Johannesburg to Maputo. The diplomats were released after paying $30,000 and the vehicle was returned to them.

Diplomatic and government sources in South Africa have made similar claims, telling Global Initiative that the North Korean embassy in Pretoria is “actively involved in smuggling ivory and rhino horn” and may be linked to other illegal activities.

There are also allegations that the North Korean embassy in Addis Ababa is being used as a transit point for the smuggling of illicit wildlife products to China, with embassy officials abusing their diplomatic status to act as couriers.

Since the mid-1970s, North Korea’s involvement in transnational organised crime – particularly drug and cigarette trafficking, weapons smuggling and the production of counterfeit US currency – has grown steadily, peaking during the severe economic crisis and famine the country faced in the early and mid-1990s.

North Korean embassy officials have been implicated in 16 of the 29 smuggling cases involving diplomats that Global Initiative identified in a variety of sources dating from 1986.

A 2007 assessment of illicit activity and smuggling networks concluded that “North Korea possesses sophisticated smuggling capabilities developed from years of transnational criminal activity, driven by economic necessity and justified with ideological veneer”. These illicit activities are said to be controlled by a shadowy agency known as Division 39.

The US described it as “a secretive branch of the government… that provides critical support to [the]North Korean leadership, in part through engaging in illicit economic activities, managing slush funds and generating revenues for the leadership”. In this North Korea’s embassies appear to play a key role.

From the mid-1960 to the late 1990s, according to Global Initiative, Pyongyang poured military and financial resources into Africa, hoping to sway newly independent countries to recognise the North Korean leadership. Embassies were established across the continent but quickly became a financial burden.

After the country defaulted on its international debts in 1975, its embassies were required to “self-fund” their operations, a practice that continues to this day. “Diplomats are expected to earn enough money to supplement their paltry salaries and be able to make sizeable financial contributions to the central government in Pyongyang.” Some embassies even use their vehicles as a private taxi service.

According to Rademeyer, the need to self-fund is part of the reason Korean diplomats have been implicated in crimes ranging from diamond, gold, drug and gun smuggling to trafficking in counterfeit currency, cigarettes, medicines and electronics.

With seeming immunity from prosecution by African states, supporting organised crime seems to have become one of the primary preoccupations of North Korea’s beleaguered embassies.

With most of the planet’s rhinos in Kruger Park, which borders on Mozambique, the future of the species remains extremely tenuous unless South Africa and the world takes action to hold Maputo and North Korea to account.

When police stormed a house in Matola on the outskirts of the Mozambican capital, Maputo, on 12 May 2015, little did they expect to make the largest seizure of ivory and rhino horn in the country’s history.

Packed into shipping crates and piled on the floor were 340 elephant tusks and 65 rhino horns. Together they weighed about 1.3 tonnes, representing the deaths of at least 170 elephants and more than 30 rhinos at the hands of poachers.

Fresh blood spatter and the rank smell of decay indicated that some of the horns were from recent kills. One of the occupants of the house, a Chinese national, was taken into custody. A day later, a second Chinese man was arrested when he offered police investigators a $34,000 bribe to drop the case.

TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, praised the “highly significant seizure” and said it hoped the arrests would signal “a new chapter in Mozambique’s history of wildlife trade law enforcement”. Tom Milliken, TRAFFIC’s rhino and elephant programme leader, said it was “now absolutely vital for a full and thorough investigation to be carried out”, adding that “the opportunity must not be squandered”.

But it was squandered. A dozen horns vanished within days of the raid, despite being under guard at the police’s provincial command headquarters. They were replaced with crude replicas made from “bull horns”, according to some reports. The Chinese suspects were released on bail after promising to return to court in November. They disappeared without trace.

ANTIGUA: AHTA Chair Says Tourism Needs Better Monitoring

The Chairman of the Antigua Hotels and Tourism Association (AHTA), Alex DeBrito said there is need for better monitoring, supervision and more demands on hotel investors to ensure the industry maintains a high standard.

DeBrito said a lot of work is currently being done now on three and four star properties, but added the quality of many of the hotels are slipping.

“Some of the rooms need to be refurbished, improved. We need to have attractive mid-range hotels, with good rates which could attract more people,” he said.

The chairman said the problems that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said are affecting the marketing of the tourism product have to be addressed by all stakeholders.

“Of course we are monitoring, and do as much as we can. Properties are private, so when somebody invests in Antigua, it is for all of us to ensure we are on top of things. I think it is time now to get back to stricter supervision and be more demanding.

“In the past, to have a nice beach, nice people, sea and sun shining every day was enough, not anymore, we have competition,” DeBrito said.

He advised that the industry officials here also need to monitor and observe what is happening in more successful markets and work towards developing models that could yield similar results.