DCCI Chief: Dubai Chamber plans more offices in Africa

Dubai’s rapidly growing share of trade with Africa has encouraged the emirate’s business representative body to enter into a dialogue with more countries to open their office there. After tasting success in Ethopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, where they opened an office last year,The Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) is currently in talks in Nigeria, South Africa, Angola, Kenya and Ghana said Hamad Bu Amim, president and chief executive of the DCCI on the sidelines of the ongoing Swift International Banking Operations Seminar (Sibos) . “We have started seeing the results of opening in Addis Ababa, business for our traders has jumped more than 100 per cent within a year and we expect that to continue,” Bu Amim said. “Addis Ababa is like what Belgium is to Europe. That is where the African Union is located and we are on our way expanding in other places.”

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Central Freight Lines Buys 100 Freightliner M2 112 CNG Trucks

U.S. transportation company Central Freight Lines, Inc. has added 100;Freightliner M2 112 compressed natural gas (CNG) tractors equipped with Cummins Westport ISL G natural gas engines to its fleet of more than 1,600 trucks. Headquartered in Waco, Texas, Central Freight Lines is a less-than-truckload (LTL) general commodities carrier nationally recognized as one of the safest carriers on the road today. According to Don Orr, president and CEO, Central Freight Lines is partnering to build new CNG stations in Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio as a result of the decision to convert the fleet to CNG technology. Central Freight Lines also considered the opportunity to reduce dependency on foreign fuels and support a clean-air policy as it supplemented its current fleet with CNG.

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Ethiopian Establishes Cargo Hub in West Africa

Ethiopian Cargo, Africa’s largest cargo operator serving 25 cargo destinations worldwide with six dedicated freighter aircraft, is opening a second African cargo hub in Lomé (Togo), in partnership with ASKY Airlines. The new cargo centre of the East African huge air-travel operator will begin operations this month after the phase-in of a B737- 400F.

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Rwanda’s multi-billion dollar railway project to link landlocked country to Mombasa Port

The railway project estimated to cost over $5Billion will ease transportation of goods between Rwanda and Kenya through Uganda.

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138 Million Fake Shillings Seized in Mombasa

THE Kenya Anti Counterfeit Agency has intercepted fake pens worth Sh138 million headed for Uganda. ACA officers caught two 40-feet containers with the contraband at the port of Mombasa on Monday.

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China moves in to rebuild Kenya’s Railway

More than a century ago, British engineers and their African and Indian laborers spent five years carving a railway through what would become Kenya in a propose to open up East Africa’s interior.  Along the way, close to 2,500 workers died, struck down by malaria, attacked by lions or overcome by exhaustion.  This Chinese funding includes a selection of projects, including new hydro-electric dams and the expansion of Kenya’s ports, but the railway is expected to consume most of the money. Its British-built predecessor was rendered almost abandoned by decades of state-sponsored looting of Kenya Railways, forcing almost all freight on to blocked and potholed roads.

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Northern Railway Line Reopened

Northern Railway Line Reopened

Rift Valley Railways (RVR) has opened the Tororo-Gulu-Pakwach line, taking the train back to northern Uganda. The 500-km railway track, last operational in 1993, is open for business following the completion of repairs on the track, bridges and culverts that had been destroyed – after lying idle for 20 years. The first train carrying steel imports for Juba from Mombasa port was received in Gulu last week.

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Dar es Salaam and Mombasa Ports For Inland Freighting

The port of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania may be just 1,380 kms from Kigali by road, but officials there have until now looked on helplessly as almost all Rwandan business slipped passed it to the Kenyan Port of Mombasa, a journey that is about 400kms longer through Uganda. Slightly above 50% of Rwanda’s shipments go through the Northern Corridor route; Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali, and the recent removal of police roadblocks, reduction in the number of weighbridges and improvements in cargo handling at Mombasa is making the route even more user friendly to Rwandan traders. Confronted by this rude reality, the Government of Tanzania recently dispatched a minister to Kigali on a mission to reassure the business community in Rwanda that the Port of Dar-es-Salaam is also putting behind its inefficient past.

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Mobile Apps to help save money on fuel

1. A hyper miler’s power tool  Every geek subculture needs to have a name. The people who rigidly seek out and measure new techniques to maximize their car’s fuel economy are known as hyper milers. The newly released Kiwi 2 Bluetooth dongle, manufactured by PLX Devices, is a hyper miler’s power tool that attaches to the car’s onboard diagnostic port and wirelessly sends information contained within the car’s computer to Android, Symbian, N9, Linux or PC devices, with a previously released unit, the Kiwi 2 Wi-Fi, compatible with iPhones and iPads. The product transmits data to an app that displays pages and pages full of graphical gauges and statistics showing all sorts of details about real-time engine performance; check engine trouble codes, and mountains of metrics concerning fuel use and efficiency. Users can track very detailed stats since their last fill-up, including max speed, number of stops, idle time and other driver-controllable variables so that the dedicated sorts can establish what circumstances may have caused increases or decreases in excess gas consumption, and adjust their driving habits accordingly.

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RVR Plans to Upgrade the Uganda Line

A Ugandan railway line abandoned for over 25 years, linking Kampala to northern Uganda’s oil-rich West Nile region, will be restored to full capacity by the time Uganda starts production in 2016, operator Rift Valley Railways (RVR) said on Wednesday.

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