The price of white maize has come down over fifty percent in South Africa due to overproduction in that country. However, maize prices will not be cheaper in Namibia, as prices are fixed about six months in advance at the Southern Africa Food Exchange, Safex. According to Mr Christof Brock, chief executive officer of the Namibian Agronomic Board, such future prices were common practice. Until December 2002, the fixed price of around R 2 300 still held, but a few weeks ago dropped to around R 900, Brock said. With the backing of president Nujoma and agriculture minister Helmut Angula, it was decided to stick to the ‘old’ price of R/N$ 2 300 per metric tonne of white maize, in order to protect Namibian maize producers. For this year the Namibian harvest for white maize was expected to be 32 500 t, mainly due to irrigation, compared to only 19 100 t last year. As usual, the country’s border will be closed for maize imports between May and September, when the Namibian maize is harvested, milled and put up for sale. Special measures were in place at border posts to prevent traders from importing cheap maize from South Africa to sell it with a high profit in Namibia. Maize prices in Namibia would only increase marginally, in line with the annual inflation rate, Brock explained.

Following the collapse and liquidation of Namibia Minerals Corporation (Namco), diamond mining giant De Beers Marine bought up 20 million US dollars’ worth of Namco assets. This includes the ocean bed sea crawler NamSol II and the diamond processing machinery on board the diamond vessel MV Toivo ya Toivo, belonging to Namco Mark II, a subsidiary. A company in the Bahaman islands, Deep Sea Navigation Ltd is interested to lease the MV ya Toivo, according to De Beers Marine. A large number of prominent Swapo members have shares in Namco.

The collapsed offshore diamond company had severe cash flow problems after its seabed crawler had an accident on the ocean bed in 2001. The Namibian government in 2002 paid in 20 million N$ to help Namco, but this was in vain as well as the multi-million US dollar injection of Israeli diamond mogul, Lev Leviev.

A team of technical experts form the German Agency for Cooperation, GTZ will evaluate the programme of cooperation with the Namibian government for the promotion of the small and medium business sector (SME). The GTZ advisor for SME at the ministry of trade and industry, Dr Michael Hamp, together with Mr Eckard Oehring and Sabine Becker of the GTZ head office in Germany, briefed foreign minister Hidipo Hamutenya on Wednesday about the exercise. Over the next two weeks new guidelines for a second cooperation programme for SME’s will be compiled based on experiences.