Archive
The Red Dolphin Life Guards
As part of our commitment in supporting responsible tourism, the TTAG with the assistance of Gambian Experience and some donations from local saw mills.
We were able to recently build and hand over to the Gambian Tourist Authority, five life guard towers on the beaches in tourist areas, ensuring the safety of Tourist and citizens alike. .
For your Safety always check sea conditions, look for the nearest flag which will indicated the colours : WHITE—SAFE SWIMMING
BLUE – SWIM WITH CAUSION
RED — DANGER , NO SWIMMING
WHITE WITH BLACK CROSS — NO LIFE GUARD ON DUTY
Enjoy your Gambia Holidays!
Our members are involved in Gambian restaurants, tours, excursions, eco-tourism, car rentals, and shops within the vibrant Gambia Tourism Industry.
Please visit our website www.ttag.gm
Gambia Century 21 Real Estate Agency
+220-497 856/951
sahel@qnet.gm
www.sahelgroup.gm/
Gambia Attractions
Though the Gambia is small it offers a wide variety of sites offering tourist excursions and attractions. There are numerous land-based tours, mixed excursions and river trips.
Starting from the coastal holiday resorts of Kombo North you can begin with the various tourist attractions of Banjul the capital where there is Gambia national Museum on Independence Drive, the bustling and livelyAlbert Market, the huge arch at the entrance to the capital or marvel at some of the colonial architecture.
A few kilometres away from the capital and towards the coastal areas you get to the major vacation locations of Bakau, Cape Point, Fajara, Kololi, (Senegambia strip) and Kotou where you can enjoy local attractions of endless goldenbeaches and almost guaranteed sunshine and other leisure activities such as watersports, quad-biking, golf and tennis. These areas are where most tourist choose to spend there time with its numerous restaurants, bars, shops and local night clubs particularly in the Kololi & Senegambia areas.
At Bakau there is the Craft Market, Katchikally Crocodile Pool (whose crocs are allegedly said to be so tame they allow tourist to touch them) further inland you find Serrekunda town with its dazzling and hectic market, Sunday Wresting and tie-and-dye factory. There is also the Bijilo Forest Park which is within easy walking distance from the Kairaba or Senegambia hotels. The destinations of Brufut Heights and Brufut Gardens are becoming an increasingly important resort destinations.
For the more adventurous you can take a one-day or half-day excursion further down the coast of theTanji Village Museum and bird reserve where you can hire a boat and take an excursion among the mangroves with amazing unspoilt scenery. You can also go for camel safaris at Tanji which is located just after the bridge on the left.
Birdwatching is possible even within the tropical gardens of the major hotels and many actively encourage birds to breed on their hotel complexes. However the Gambia has many wildlife & bird reserves such Tanji and Abuko Nature Reserve which is a 20 minutes drive from most hotels.
Abuko forest is also home to hyenas and various species of monkeys.There are numerous safari camps located up-country and most are to be found on the river banks offering reasonably descent accommodation.
For the even more adventurous you can visit the Tanbi Wetland Reserve which is located directly south of the capital. It is a large expanse of creeks and mangrove swamps with plenty of opportunities for cruising, bird watching fishing.Fishing excursion opportunities are endless. You can choose both sea or creek fishing as well as the river itself where you can hire a boat from numerous tour operators located at Denton Bridge.
Be sure to also see:
Abuko Nature Reserve Bao Bolon (also spelt Baobolong) Fort Bullen Basse Santa Su Brufut Heights and Gardens Resort Jinack Island National Park of Niumi Kanilai Game Park Ancient stone circles at Kerr Batch Pirang Forest National Park Tanji River Karinti Bird Reserve Wassu Stone Circles.
Enjoy your Gambia Holidays!
Our members are involved in Gambian restaurants, tours, excursions, eco-tourism, car rentals, and shops within the vibrant Gambia Tourism Industry.
Please visit our website www.ttag.gm
Waxing Treatments
Let us pamper you with our Holistic health waxing treatment. Waxing is a very convenient, cost-effective, longer-lasting and quick method of removing this unwanted and unsightly body hair. As it removes hair directly from the roots, one does not need to worry about hair growth till at least 3-6 weeks.
Islamic banks join in the race for Africa
CHINA is not the only financial powerhouse with its hungry eye on Africa. Flush with oil wealth, the Gulf states, too, are spying profitable opportunities among the hundreds of millions of Muslims who live just a hop across the Red Sea. Africa’s economies are growing fast, thanks in large part to the commodities boom.
Although many people on the continent do not have a bank account, the banking systems in some countries are growing increasingly sophisticated. Bankers from the Gulf hope that the middle class, particularly in the Muslim north, will turn to Islamic finance, and that firms will raise money through Islamic bonds, known as sukuk. Moody’s, a credit-rating agency, reckons that although Islamic finance was worth a puny $18 billion at the end of last year, its potential is close to $235 billion—about half what it estimates as the GDP of Africa’s Muslim population.
So far, forays from the Gulf into Africa have been limited to a few countries. Sudan—where only sharia-compliant finance is allowed in the north—dominates, holding over half of Africa’s Islamic-banking assets. A number of Gulf banks, familiar with the country’s language and oil resources, have joined forces with Sudanese investors to open Islamic banks. Last year the first sukuk from Africa was issued by a Sudanese cement firm. Reportedly, the government also tapped the market in January—selling bonds to Gulf investors to sidestep American economic sanctions over the massacres in Darfur.
But Sudan’s banking industry remains embryonic and few African countries combine the strong desire to promote Islamic banking with heavy demand from Muslim customers. “Islamic banking is a luxury product,” admits Anouar Hassoune of Moody’s: it tends to do better in places with established banking systems, such as South Africa and Kenya. South Africa’s only Islamic bank, Albaraka, was set up in 1989. Last year the Kenyan authorities licensed two Islamic banks, Gulf African Bank and First Community Bank, both backed by Gulf investment.
Western banks are also dipping their toes in. In Kenya Barclays was the first to offer an Islamic bank account appropriately named La Riba, meaning “no interest”. South Africa’s ABSA opened an Islamic banking division in 2006. It offers phone, internet and branch banking. Its head, Ahmed Moola, says the division was profitable last year, though he declines to discuss numbers.
Some of the keenest African custom for Islamic products is in countries where Muslims are a small minority; it provides a way of affirming their cultural heritage. Hamza Farooqi, who heads South Africa’s CII Holdings, a diversified business group, has gradually been moving his own and his company’s finances from conventional banks to ABSA’s Islamic division. It has asked ABSA to help finance the first “dry” five-star hotel in Cape Town.
Islamic finance in Africa is a niche market, and probably will remain so. Islamic scholars are few and far between; few countries’ laws are suitable for Islamic banking; the margins tend to be thinner than in the conventional Western model. Some countries, such as Nigeria, with almost 70m Muslims and a booming banking sector, should be fertile ground. The authorities’ hands are full, however, sorting out its existing banks.
One of the most promising areas of growth may be in project finance and bonds. The continent’s vast need for infrastructure is matched only by the shortage of investment funds: Gulf investors could help bridge the gap. Project finance is well suited for Islamic financial instruments, which need to be backed by physical assets. Gulf Finance House, an Islamic investment bank based in Bahrain, signed a $1.4 billion deal in Morocco to fund two tourism projects in 2006. Senegal is said to be contemplating issuing a sovereign sukuk. It could be a 21st-century version of “the scramble for Africa”. But this time the Gulf is moving in alongside China.
Sa Hel Invest Mutual Fund (SIMF)
The Sa Hel Invest Mutual Fund (SIMF) is one of the few mutual funds in The Gambia, the fund is open to both individual and institutional investors.
+220-497 856/951
sahel@qnet.gm
www.sahelgroup.gm/
Buy into Africa
Naive investors would probably attribute this new-found fortune and enthusiasm to just one spectacularly successful industry – the resources business. And it’s certainly true that SSA has more than its fair share of oil – both Angola and Nigeria are now huge producers of oil for western markets. Other important African export commodities include iron ore, timber, manganese, cobalt, copper and chromium.
But the resources sector is only half the story. Successful investors such as Jamie Allsop – a classic value investor – are scouring the continent using old-fashioned value ideas, looking for solid trading companies benefiting from the much bigger economic transformation under way.
Two decades ago, there were just five stock exchanges in SSA. Today, there are 18 with 1,500 separate listings. It has been reported in Fortune magazine that, excluding South African shares, African stocks have climbed an annualised 43 per cent since the end of 2006. In particular, since 2001 the Mauritian, Botswanan, South African and Namibian stock exchanges have outperformed the Dow Jones index by 483 per cent, 375 per cent, 202 per cent and 188 per cent respectively.
+220-497 856/951
sahel@qnet.gm
www.sahelgroup.gm/
Project Finance
In developing countries, project financing attained its maximum height around the time of Asian financial crisis. There is a continuing upward trend on the demand for project financing throughout the world. This is because there is also a growing number of countries that need more supplies of public utilities and infrastructure.
Project finance involves the financing of long-standing infrastructure and industrial projects backed by a well-established project plan and supported by debt and equity of usually two parties. Project finance is usually resorted to by companies who don’t have enough liquidity to generate internal capital for the project. The terms and conditions of the financing are made clear to both parties.
The continuing emergence of the need for public utilities will surely put project finance in the forefront of providing assistance not only in infrastructure but also in other fields.
+220-497 856/951
sahel@qnet.gm
www.sahelgroup.gm/
Wild Harvest Pharma Response
Maybe there has been a little confusion over the sustainability of the tree of life, The Baobab. First off carbon dateing done on a great Baobab in S.A. has revealed that this particular tree is over 5000 years old. But to put things in perspective a baoabab reaches maturity at 60 and with an average life-span of 500 years.
I got involved in the commercial proceessing of this mighty tree of Africa when i was doing research into Mandinka tribes in The Gambia. Getting back to the article, indeed the Madagascan Baobab fruit is endangered however this are not exported and are only used for local consumption. The next point is that last year S.A. alone consumed over 100,000 tons of Baobab, with a tree population of over 28 Million this figure far exceeds the projected demand from Europe and the U.S.
Baobab has the potential of changeing lives here in Africa, not for big businessmen but for rural communities and those that need and want additional income. Baobab trees are being felled right now to build houses and shops. When farmers understand that this tree can provide income for themselves, their children and their great great grandchildren they are going to protect these trees.
So the demand in Europe and the U.S. will fuel the protection of the tree. Wild Harvest Pharma have already embarked on a planting project where we plant hundreds of trees each year for the community, that way when they bear fruit that community will beneifit directly.
We are also looking to employ disabled workers in our processing facility to empower the most dis-adavantaged workers. Baobab is great news for Africa and fantastic news for the Europeans that will beneifit from the health and nutritional value of this amazing tree of life.
Dr Baobab
Wild Harvest Pharma
Africa Blogs 
