I Speak English Only: Brick Making Plant?

Hi there,

It's going to be quite difficult to start a concrete block making plant with just US$40,000. That's not enough money to start anything of significance here. Plus, there are already several block making plants here. You really need to do more research and probably write a good business plan/feasibility analysis to understand if it even makes sense to create a plant and if so, what it will actually cost.

A 2002 vehicle will attract a customs duty of 100%! But if your car is owned by a business, that fee will be deferred for 5 years and then you must either pay the tax, or ship the car back out of the country. Or sell it to  someone who is willing to purchase the car and pay the tax. Hoever, if you are going to invest more than €45,000 in a business, you can apply for the Investor certificate which will give you a complete waiver on customs duties and income taxes on any imports (like your car) that are for business purposes.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Angelo

wrhurst wrote:

Is it possible for me to start a Concrete Brick Making Plant in CV with $40,000USD? I speak English only is that going to be a problem living and doing Business in CV?

Also, I have a 2002 Acura MDX SUV is that considered too old to bring into the country? What is the Duty Like for cars?

Thanks

In case anyone was interested in what businesses you could start with just $40,000 (i.e., €35.000), I would suggest a combined art school and gallery. But you would need to do it in Sal. Only in Sal can you take this level of investment and start a simple business which can generate good returns. For example, such a gallery would generate about €60.000 per year before taxes.

There are a couple other examples, I can think of with this level of startup budget (€35-65,000) including an amphibious vehicle tour, a water-taxi boat, or a small game arcade. These could generate €150,000 per year or more in net profits before taxes. The reason that you could earn such large profits is that Sal is booming and these are UNIQUE offerings. So you will get a high occupancy rate if your prices are reasonable.

The key is to get over the €45,000 investment level. At that point, you would qualify for the tax waiver benefit which is given to people who invest more than €45.000 in the tourism sector.

If anyone is interested in looking at business ideas (already fully elaborated) which require bigger initial outlays (€300.000-€500.000) but with substantially higher profits (€300.000-500.000 per year), I'd be happy to tell you about them. At these levels, you are looking at substantial fiscal benefits from the Cape Verde government and a relatively large operation that would offer lots of jobs to locals. So you could to a lot of good for this country.

Angelo

CVAngelo

Can you please tell me more about investment opportunities in CV with capital requirements of about $100,000 to $200,000?

I am an American citizen and I am very interested in CV as a second home. My plan is to visit for 2 to 3 months a year until I retire and then consider moving there full time.

I was brainstorming about what to do there to contribute to the country while making a little bit of money and not having visited yet, it was a difficult exercise.

Hi Mathias,

In the range of $100-200 thousand dollars, you'd be looking at the following types of investment: catering industry (i.e., restaurants, bars/cafes), water sports, and tourism activities involving smaller ships.

For example, a 50-60 seat restaurant could be built. The question is in what type of cuisine. If you have a unique offering, you could do especially well. What about a micro-brewery? Or a Cafe offering Africa's best coffees (sell by the cup and by the bag). Africa has some of he world's best coffee. There are also excellent beans grown in Cape Verde on the volcano in Fogo. There are no micro-breweries or specialized coffee-shops in Sal at the moment.

In the area of water-based entertainment offerings, there are no party boats or sightseeing (glass-bottom) boats there. You can purchase a good used vessel in the price range you are contemplating.

Another approach would be to leverage your investment through loan financing. For example, the other sector in which there are oversized profits is in shipping. If you had 40% down, the LOCAL banks would lend you money to buy a passenger-cargo ship to do inter-island maritime transport. So with $200,000, you could set up a shipping company worth $450,000. I am currently assisting another investor at this moment with such a maritime transport project in this range.

You could certainly use leveraged financing in the tourism sector too. The banks are also very eager to provide loans for tourism projects in Sal.

The reason the leveraged approach works well is that investments in these two sectors (tourism and maritime transport) are typically generating returns of 100% per year. And the services are in very high demand. So loans can be retired quickly and the banks have little to no risk in making the loans because of the collateral you would have with the business equipment, land and buildings/vessels.

Finally, if you want to a long term investment that would generate long term returns, then consider buying land on the island of Maio. In 10 years, Maio will be very much like Boavista and Sal except it is now unspoiled and has absolutely the best beaches in all of Cape Verde (even better than Sal and Boavista). Hilton Hotels and RIU Hotels have already purchased land there. Prime land is going for $40-45 per meter squared. With $200K, you could purchase 5,000 m2 of land. In 5-10 years it would likely be worth many multiples of that. But it's a long time to wait either to sell the land or use the land as collateral to develop a tourism-based business on it. The reason there is no immediate payoff is that Maio is between where Sal and Boavista were 10 years ago. There is little infrastructure in place and no international airport. Domestic flights are now only twice weekly. But the national and local governments have had a long term plan of infrastructure improvements (already well underway) to support the thousands of tourists that will likely begin arriving within the next 5 years.

***

Regards,

Angelo