CHRIS GILMOUR: African retailing — a dream deferred?
One ray of hope for Africa lies in a potential commodity price boom over the next few years
06 April 2021 - 14:18
Back in the 1990s, as SA came out of political isolation, local corporates started examining business opportunities in the rest of the continent. Retailers jumped on this bandwagon and were delighted to be able to offer SA shopping experiences to the rest of Africa.
By the beginning of the new millennium, it was imperative to have an Africa strategy for doing business outside of SA. But by 2010, things were changing. Many large foreign retailers put any plans they had for Africa on the back burner in the wake of the global financial crisis and began retreating to their own backyards...
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