Is having ‘NATURAL RESOURCES’ inversely proportional to THINKING? – Ace Asks?
When it comes to so-called “natural resources” God ‘cheated’ Switzerland paaah.
What they have in commercial quantities are lime, clay, salt, sand, marble and gravel. Then they have small amounts of iron and manganese deposits. No coal. Then they have rocks and mountains and snow. As at 2014, only 11% of their land was farmed.
But what they lack in ‘natural resources’ they make up for in BRAINS. Let’s consider water, which Ghana has in abundance, yet cannot produce sustainable electricity and is allowing to be polluted through illegal mining. Switzerland harnesses ice glaciers for energy in hydroelectric power facilities that supply 59% of the country’s electricity.
The rocky terrain and ice can now be considered a ‘natural resource’ because they help generate US$16B yearly revenue from tourism.
There is no cocoa tree in Switzerland. Yet between Nestlé, Lindt & Sprüngli, they earned a total of US$15.2B in 2015 from manufacturing and selling chocolate and confectionary. [Let’s ignore the small matter of the similarly cocoa-less United States earning US$33B from the same business in 2015 between Mars, Mondelēz and Hershey.]
By contrast, Africa produces 75% of the world’s cocoa beans, mostly through rain-fed, hoe-and-cutlass farming, but gets only 2% of the yearly US$100B world chocolate business. Cocoa beans do not convert into chocolate naturally. It takes brains to convert it. We produce the cocoa and sell it at song-and-a-dance prices determined by some 24-year old graduate on the London Mercantile Exchange. Then someone else produces the chocolate, and makes a killing for it. Show me the international Airport that sells Ghana chocolate that is comparable to Swiss Lindt or even Austrian Mozartkugel, apart from that small corner at the Kotoka Airport!
And so I ask: is having ‘NATURAL RESOURCES’ inversely proportional to THINKING?
Pardon my typos!
Ace Ankomah
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