The growing presence of Chinese traders in Nairobi is causing panic among small and medium entrepreneurs and manufacturers. Complaints are flowing fast about the low-priced and what, it is believed, are substandard goods brought into the country by Chinese investors.
Manufacturers are up in arms, saying the low-priced goods were eating into their sales and leading to huge losses, partly due to the sector’s limited or poor capacity to distribute. They are blaming the Government for not supporting and protecting them from the cheap imports.
“We have seen counterfeit goods in the country by fellow Kenyans but this is not as worrying as the high presence of China-made goods being imported into the country,” says Paul Kinuthia, the director at Interconsumer Products, an SME in Kenya.
Interconsumer deals in personal care products and has had to reduce some of their prices as competition intensifies. Personal care products sector feel the pinch of imported cosmetics from China selling at much cheaper rates.
Now the Chinese have taken to hawking their wares in town due to the high demand for their products. To read more visit www.bdafrica.com
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As I was following the recent disaster in the world's economy, I did find one glimmer of hope and a "golden opportunity":
What if....
One were to negotiate and obtain the diving board concession for the NYSE building at Wall & Broad for a "special event" celebrating the halving of the Dow-Jones? All diving competition entrants would be charged a nominal, appropriate, but cost effective fee for our services.
The logistics would be pretty straight-forward... among them would be:
- lease the roof section of the NYSE building facing Wall Street
- buy up or rent a number of good quality used pool type diving boards
- arrange with the NYPD to have the block-long section of Wall Street blocked off to all traffic for this "special event"
- have Velaity draft up the "final wishes & disposal" contract for the competitive divers
- form a judging panel of financial peers to determine the winners for best form and grace in their final dive
- contract with Allied Waste to pick-up the remains and deliver them to the funeral home of choice
- arrange with the Bates Casket (manufacturing co.) for cheap wood and cardboard coffins (probably by the train-load!)
- buy a several acre track of land that used to be a waste disposal site for all the burials
- hire a non-denominational celebrant to provide the final rites
...and so on...
Anyone care to go into this business?
It might be a lot of fun....
--Nick
PS: If it weren't for bad taste, I'd have no taste at all....
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