Reference no: EM133021124

South African retailer Massmart is continuing its Pan-African expansion with plans to open about 20 new stores outside its home market over the next three years, the company's chairperson said on Monday. Massmart, majority-owned by US retail giant Wal-Mart, sells goods ranging from food and televisions to refrigerators and operates nearly 400 stores, including 42 across 12 countries outside South Africa. "We're very bullish about Africa, sub-Saharan Africa as a whole," Kuseni Dlamini told Reuters on the side-lines of the African CEO Forum in Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan.

"This year alone we will be opening eight new stores on the African continent. In the next three years we'll be expanding our retail trading space by 35.6%." That is an increase from around 26% in 2017 and 2018. New stores are due to open in Kenya, Ghana, Mozambique, Zambia and Swaziland. Dlamini said Massmart is also studying markets in French-speaking West and Central Africa with a view to starting operations there. "When we talk about growing our business across sub-Saharan Africa, that definitely includes Francophone Africa," he said.

South African retailers have struggled as consumers battling job losses and high personal debt levels hold back on spending, but Massmart has lagged its closest rival Shoprite both on the stock market and operationally in recent years.

Question:

Identify at least three countries in Africa and, or the Middle East that you would advise Massmart to avoid for the foreseeable future and one that you would invest in and why?