Most people that I know that invest like me in Africa, are Africans living in Europe, and most of them let family members manage their investments, but even then things can, and do go wrong. When talking business with Africans in the diaspora, how to avoid your local partner taking your investment for his own benefit is always a major topic, and everybody seem to have stories of extended family members being dishonest with them.
I actually tried to tackle the issue of how this problem can be so prevalent in one of my first posts called The Issue of Trust. Since I started investing in the Ivory Coast I have been the victim of fraud twice, in both cases due to dishonest workers on the Cocody house. Since early s, among well-off Ivorians there seems to be a trend to invest in rubber trees.
I considered joining in, but never did for the following reasons:. In fact, according to www. Only medical rubber can be steam cleaned in a medical sterilizer, then thrust into a freezer β and still adhere flexibility to glass and steel. Big airplane and truck tires are almost entirely natural rubber; radial tires use natural rubber in their sidewalls, whereas the earlier bias-ply tires were entirely synthetic.
High-tech manufacturers and utilities use high-performance natural rubber hoses, gaskets and O-rings. So do condom manufacturers. National Defense Stockpile Center has said. As to having to wait 7 years to get any returns, my problem with that was that the initial investment could be better put elsewhere.
A plantation that has grown for a couple of years can of course be bought or sold, so nobody really has to wait 7 years. My remaining concerns about rubber tree investments still stand though. Natural rubber is a curious product, being agriculturally produced but used industrially.
