Emirates joins scramble for Africa

Africa is a wealth of opportunities, according to Ram Menen, Emirates’ divisional senior vicepresident, cargo. In an exclusive interview with FTW on his recent visit to Durban to act as keynote speaker at the Air Cargo Summit, Menen said: “Africa is a place where it’s all happening. It is just full of untapped opportunities.” As an example, more than 50% of the world’s minerals are found in the African soil, and 60% of the essential minerals – gold, diamonds, platinum and uranium amongst them. “All in all,” Menen said, “it is so resource-rich that everybody is scrambling to get in there. The Chinese, for instance, are all over Africa.” This gives Emirates the opportunities to carry urgently needed mining equipment from the likes of Australia, spare parts and components, tools and equipment repairs on both the outbound and inbound routes, electronics, foods and beverages, and of course, personnel. “And we carry gold itself,” said Menen, “mainly bound for the market in India, and diamonds.” Another magic word of the moment is oil. Apart from the traditional sources in Nigeria and Angola, Menen pointed to a number of new sources, like Uganda and Ghana. There have also been new finds of oil and/or gas deposits right around the coast of the Bulge of West Africa, with claims made by the likes of Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Gabon, Liberia, Guinea and the Ivory Coast. There has also been an exciting new find of gas in Mozambique, with expectations of oil now reaching high levels, and to an extent gas and possible oil off the coast of South Africa. “All this makes Africa an exciting place to be,” said Menen.