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AFRICAN BUSINESS w i n n e r o f t h e D ia g e o 2 0 0 5 B e s t P u b l i c a t i o n a w a r d NOVEMBER 2006 ISSUE 325 WWW.AFRICASIA.COM

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Editorial 13 Tourism : Africa in the right time and right place

Cover Story Africa’s Top 100 Banks 16 The 2006 Rankings

Focus on Nigeria 20 A World Class Financial Sector 28 Emerging Opportunities 30 Oceanic Bank profile 32 Nexim

Region by region 34 Southern A frica: Still on top 36 Eastern A frica: Kenya faces EAC competitors 38 North A frica: Morocco and Egypt vie for supremacy 4 0 West A frica: Nigerian shake-up not yet complete 4 4 Central A frica: Limited banking strength

Energy 46 Interest in East Africa rises

New Products 48 Uganda’s high-fashion fish skin

Profile 52 Cyril Ramaphosa: Tomorrow’s man?

IC T Special Survey 56 The Role of ICT 58 ICT in Mauritius 60 Has liberalisation delivered its promises? 62 Open Source Software for Africa?

Guest column 64 Africa’s intellectuals

Investm ent 67 Euro-African MPs ponder growth

Country Files 68 Nigeria: Abuja promises rail revolution 70 S .A frica: Indian connection gathers momentum 72 Uganda: Power to the people

Books/Music 78 ‘New News from Africa' and other books 82 Afro-Cuba Roots

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