Emirates lands in Antananarivo
An Emirates Boeing 777 landed for the first time at Ivato Airport, September 3. This was the inaugural flight of the Dubai-Antananarivo line, now operated four times a week via the Seychelles. The President of the Republic Andry Rajoelina came in person to welcome the new pavilion. The Emirati company would also consider opening a line between Dubai and the tourist island of Nosy Be.
Emirates began a local recruitment campaign in Madagascar on September 23, for commercial flight and ground customer service positions, based in Dubai.
Rice imports fell in 2023
Madagascar spent more than 192 million euros, last year, to compensate for the insufficient national rice production. This bill is, however, 36% lower than that of the previous year., and imports fell more significantly in tonnage, going from 744,846 tonnes in 2022 to 424,000 tonnes in 2023 (-43 %). This drop reflects the increase in production of Malagasy rice fields, which cover 1,6 million hectares and around 85% of the country’s needs.
Chinese hybrid rice to the rescue
Madagascar signed memorandums of understanding with a Chinese seed company at the beginning of September in order to develop the production of hybrid varieties on the Big Island.. 2,000 hectares will soon be cultivated in the Morondava region, under this agreement. The Malagasy authorities have the ambition to rapidly develop hybrid rice cultivation, to reach, eventually, 300 000 hectares.
In Madagascar, the average yield of rice fields is less than three tonnes per hectare. Experiments carried out with Chinese hybrid rice gave yields of 8,5 tonnes per hectare. The Malagasy state is banking on these varieties to achieve self-sufficiency, even make the Big Island a rice exporting country, like before.
Jirama loses $250 million per year
The national water and electricity company costs the Malagasy state the equivalent of $250 million per year, Prime Minister Christian Ntsay recently revealed in the Senate gallery. Jirama is a pit of public money due to its operating losses, its revenues being less than half the amount of its expenses. The mismanagement of the national company has been denounced for at least three decades by successive governments, who seemed incapable of finding solutions. Jirama has 570,000 subscribers for electricity and 194,000 subscribers for water. Water and electricity cuts, often lasting long hours, are part of the daily lives of Malagasy people and businesses in the country.
Partnership with Huawei
The Malagasy authorities signed at the beginning of September, on the sidelines of the Forum on Sino-African Cooperation, two memorandums of understanding with Huawei to develop optical fiber and a national cloud. The objective is both to bring the Internet to rural areas and to develop digital technologies in the school system and at university.
The Malagasy state aims to increase the share of the digital sector in the country's GDP to 6% in 2028, against 1,5% in 2019.
Malfunctions at Ambatovy
In August, the Japanese group Sumimoto launched a restructuring procedure for its Malagasy nickel-cobalt unit., located between the Ambatovy mine and Tamatave, on the east coast. Sumimoto, which operates the mine with the Korean Korea Mine Rehabilitation and Mineral Resources, is faced with a lower-than-expected level of production, due to various malfunctions. The mining group is also affected by the drop in world nickel prices, which were almost halved between 2022 and 2024 due to a glut of supply. The situation is being closely monitored by the Malagasy State, of which 40% of tax revenues come from the mining sector.
