Economics

"A tourism destination must actually be many more than a standard composition of beautiful sceneries and top quality resorts. This is primarily a local community endowed with a physical as well as cultural background." With this mindset, the Ministry of Tourism intends to boost the development of a sector significantly slowed down by past crises. The recovery goes slow too, but ambitions are quite high, namely an expectation of a million visitors a year by 2020. Read More »

The production and exportation of mining products represent the main engines of growth to the industrial sector and the main pillars to the country's overall economy. This spectacular development must however not overshadow the consented efforts to boost other potentially promising and equally vital sectors including the job and added value creation process. Still, Industry definitely plays an important role in the economic structure of the nation. Read More »

Although the very President of the Republic has the engagement of talks with both major aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing high on his schedule, it does not prove enough to restore confidence among the employees of Air Madagascar, still disappointed and still traumatized by the setback recently suffered when the government unexpectedly sided with Air France like a turncoat while it was audaciously challenged by them. As for the classification of the national airline company in the European aviation institution's B category, this issue would actually originate from the trade competition concerning the renewal of the fleet's aircrafts and from commercial exploitation policies as well. Read More »

Returns from taxes have always been too low and regularly pointed out by Madagascar's foreign financial backers as one of the obstacles to the development of the island. The local mandatory levy averages the much too low 11% of GDP, and the tax bases reveal that about a mere 12% of the population contributes to tax collection. The repeatedly proposed, and eventually imposed solution, is the extension of the taxpayer base to 15%, but proves however to be physically impossible. In a society ruled by a continuously thriving informal sector based economy, such a project appears more than problematic as a matter of fact. Read More »

A few days after his return from China, Prime Minister Roger Kolo finally announced news which look good indeed, namely the imminent arrival of Chinese investors with various interests in several fields of operation in Madagascar. The government has made the political choice of turning to Asian companies much less caring about ethics of business and desperate to put a grip on business opportunities at any rate. Serge Zafimahova, president of the Development and Ethics Club, subsequently drew attention on the double edge sword which this inflow of Chinese investments is to bring with, and called upon to a larger focus on the stuff of genuine opportunities for the country. Read More »

The large scale coal extraction projects and the oil exploitation of Bemolanga are going to providing the country with the energy required to boost national economic development and the improvement of the conditions of life for the population. The solution is viable, and the Jirama company will be able to extend its energy supply networks to so far not yet electrified zones. Read More »

Its employees proceeded to choke their company in order to spare it a foregone demise. Are pending a neat loss of 65 000 a day, a potential sanction from the OACI, a very likely complain from series of French airline companies as well as other victims of much unexpected so therefore even more inconvenient flight disruptions… Neither the staff of Air Madagascar nor the ministry of the Transportation did fancy such gloomy prospects. Call this original social movement Insane, incomprehensible, desperate, unconscious, just run out of qualifiers in the process, whatever... the movement tackled by the Air Madagascar airline company's employees' union actually materializes a loud protest against developments perceived as an injustice, a complain which frames France for an alleged maneuver expecting to lead to a solid grip on every single flight ever linking Madagascar to Europe. Read More »

Some of the Air Madagascar national airline company's employees mobilized and hindered planes from a French airline company to land in Antananarivo city. Air Madagascar resorted to every available legal means and finally drew the movement to an end. The unions were keen on putting France under pressure, framing it for allegedly coercing the European aviation institutions to relegate the airline company into the European aviation's much inconvenient B appendix. The court made its decision, and denied the striking employees the right to proceed with any attempt to cut the inflow of international flights from Europe, and supported the airline company's led initiative to compel thirty employees to see to the resumption of normal operations. Read More »

30 years after the institution of the Indian Ocean Commission, Madagascar still has to find its way forward. Its economic development is still little more than a mess, whereas the other islands like Mauritius and La Reunion have taken a large enough lead to bring their industries onto the Malagasy territory and take profit from the local cheap labor. Such a synergy inside the intergovernmental organization does not hold its promises of welfare as well as expected, for the targeted markets prove tight and uneasy. Madagascar still have an asset up its sleeve though: its potential as regional barn potentially able to see to the Indian Ocean's islands food security. Read More »

For remaining true to the values of the regional Vanilla Islands affiliation, namely Madagascar, Mauritius, La Reunion, the Seychelles and the Comoros, keep on developing the pooling of its forces in order to boost tourism in the Indian Ocean. Air transport, marketing, tourist offers, paperwork ... are, just as facilities, unfinished business. Read More »