AfricaStrictlyBusiness.com, an independent online portal devoted to business information, resources, commentary, and transactional opportunities pertaining to Africa, launched online this month in a collaboration between the top executives of The Network Journal magazine.
The portal comes on stream amid global interest in Africa as a business and investment destination. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, is expected to grow at a faster clip than Brazil and India and claim seven of the world?s 10 fastest growing economies by 2015.
?The time is right for a site such as www.Africastrictlybusiness.com. The Network Journal started to re-brand Africa as a place where entrepreneurship and business innovation were thriving long before others saw it in that way. We always knew it was a huge investment frontier,? said Aziz Gueye Adetimirin, CEO of The Network Journal Communications Inc., publisher of The Network Journal and TNJ.com.?
?Our goal is to be the go-to site for business owners, corporate executives, and investors with existing operations in Africa, or who are looking to do business in Africa,? added Adetimirin, who is a recipient of the prestigious Sons of Africa award and a mentor to young, U.S.-based African entrepreneurs.
Africastrictlybusiness.com is headed by Rosalind McLymont, executive editor of The Network Journal, and author of the groundbreaking book, Africa Strictly Business, The Steady March to Prosperity, which was published in 2009 by The Network Journal Communications and from whose title the new site takes its name.?
McLymont has been writing about Africa?s business, trade, and economic potential since she was a reporter for The Journal of Commerce in the 1980s. Her award-winning 2006 novel, Middle Ground (Beckham), portrays a young Congolese entrepreneur who turns a small family business into a global conglomerate with his Chinese, Brazilian and Caribbean college classmates as his partners.
?Our site, www.Africastrictlybusiness.com, is a repository of weekly updated business news and analysis, statistical data, fast facts, industry-related event listings, and much more?all in one place. The stories and commentary we publish focus on business, industry, and related policy trends and development in Africa?s rapidly evolving commercial landscape.? said McLymont, Africastrictlybusiness.com CEO and publisher. ?Aside from our own expertise and research, our sources are industry, government and trade experts, as well as leading business and news media organizations.?
In addition to her roles at TNJ and AfricaStrictlyBusiness.com, McLymont is a partner in McLymont, Kunda & Co., a business development strategies firm with clients in the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean, and a member of the sub-Saharan Africa Advisory Committee of the United States Export-Import Bank, the country?s official credit agency. She is a former executive board member of the U.S.-based Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation, which supports and promotes the creation of a culture of peace throughout the world in the spirit of its founder, Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and in collaboration with the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre in South Africa.
McLymont previously served as a high school teacher in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and as an entrepreneurship development consultant to the Gender Program of the United Nations Development Program?s Africa Bureau.?
