Emirates Airline Hits a Rough Patch – Business Regional Round Up

Emirates Airline Hits a Rough Patch

That is bad news for Airbus, the European aerospace and defence giant which makes the A380, and for the plane itself.
Demand once seemed insatiable for flights through Emirates’ hub in Dubai, which is known in the industry as a “super-connector” airport. Now its location helps explain the airline’s difficulties as well as its spectacular past growth, says its president, Sir Tim Clark. When he helped set up the airline in 1985, he says, Dubai was “an enchanting Arab village” that generated little air traffic. Instead of filling up the planes with locals, his strategy was to use its position halfway between Asia and Europe to connect flights between cities that lacked obvious links, such as Cairo and Shanghai or Moscow and Cape Town.  Read: 

Changes are on the way for women farmers

Changes are on the way for women farmers. Some of those changes are those brought by giant global forces, like climate change, environmental degradation, or migration patterns that can either leave them alone heading their households, or alone in search of work. But other changes are coming about through a better recognition of women farmers as a force in themselves, whose productivity and economic potential should be fostered, and whose improved livelihoods bring benefits all round.
Read:  

Kenya Plans to Revive its Cotton Industry

Kenya plans to revive its cotton industry by planning training and credit facilities for farmers as part of a bid to restore production that peaked at 38,000 metric tons of seed cotton in 1984-85. Kenya currently produces 15,700 tons of seed cotton, creating about 5,240 tons of lint. Demand for the latter is about 37,000 tons, with the shortfall imported from neighboring countries, according to Fanuel Lubanga, a development manager at the state-run Agriculture and Food Authority. Read:

In The Future, ‘Made In China’ Could Become ‘Made In Africa’
Thanks to Beijing’s economic transition, Africa has a chance to pick up some of the industrial production now leaving China.  Read:  

Ethiopia, Rwanda & Nigeria becoming new financial hubs in Africa

Scary insights into South Africa’s working poor: Is it any wonder consumer spending is down?
Research by Nielsen shows that South African consumers are most concerned about the state of the economy, but despite this, consumer confidence has improved since the second quarter.

Nielsen’s Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) for the third quarter shows a rise of nine points from 78 reported in the second quarter to 87 in the third quarter. This is a substantial improvement from the figure in the first quarter, which was at its lowest level in 11 years at 75 points. The research was conducted through a survey between August 10 and September 2. Read