Month: January 2020

Ride the wave of the African Continental Free Trade Area, African Development Bank (ADB) president Adesina Urged United Kingdom investors.

Speaking at the UK Parliamentary Symposium, Mr Adesina said Africa is on the cusp of unmatched economic transformation and the United Kingdom must engage in a partnership of change.

“The Africa of the 21st century is very different. The Africa of the 21st century is new and more confident,” he said
The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Africa with the Royal African Society, Oxford Brookes University, and the Trade Justice Network organized the symposium under the theme UK-Africa Trade and Brexit.

Adesina said that Africa and the United Kingdom should be significant trading partners. “The reality, however, is that UK’s trade with Africa is trending downwards. From a $49 billion peak in 2012, trade decreased to $30.6 billion in 2018,” he noted.

Also Read: AfDB president woos UK investors to take

Equatorial Guinea has kicked off a year of long investment 2020 campaign aimed at driving capital investment into the country’s bankable projects.

In 2020, major United State firms have pledged to increase their investment in Equatorial Guinea along with Nigerian banking and financial institutions. The notable projects which are ready for investments include the construction of two modular oil refineries, a urea plant, an ammonia plant and a gold refinery.

The first investment event to be hosted in the country will be the Africa Oil & Investment Forum & Exhibition hosted in Malabo from April 1st to 2nd.

Also Read: Equatorial Commercial Bank to Introduce Agency Banking

The country’s Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons (MMH) officially launched its Year of Investment campaign, with commitments from a series of foreign investors to increasing planned investment in the country in 2020.
Equatorial Guinea’s objective is to engage with financial entities and engines …

South Africa’s rand has gained a slightly against the dollar early on Tuesday, after beginning the week on Monday on the back foot as investors calculated the economic impact of the coronavirus, which left stocks in Asia abandoned by investors.

Reuters reported that Africa’s most diversified economy currency firmed after hitting a more than six-week low in the previous session, and yet the coronavirus still weighs on the economic outlook.

At 0640 GMT, the rand traded at 14.5800 per dollar, 0.17 per cent than its previous close, while on Monday, at 0702 GMT the rand traded at 14.4800 versus the dollar, which is 0.59 per cent lower than its New York close on Friday 24th.

On the other hand, Reuters reported that the rand slipped to 14.6570 per dollar on Monday, its weakest since Dec. 12, with the selloff largely driven by investors dumping emerging-market assets.

Nedbank analysts wrote in …

Tigo, Tanzania has unveiled a new package, allowing its customers to call across networks at the same tariff.

The package dubbed “Ujanja Ni” is expected to increase its customer base by stiffening competition witin the telecommunication sector in the country.

According to a statement from Tigo, the package offers absolute freedom to call any network at the same tariff, and customers purchase the voice, and data packages at affordable and competitive prices.

Tanzania Communications Regulations Authority (TCRA) September 2019 quarterly statistics, put Tigo Tanzania with 26.1 per cent of the subscription market share, at the height of voice consumption along-side other telco giants Vodacom and Airtel Tanzania.

The launching of the service adds up on the Tanzanian government’s efforts in ensuring that making calls across all networks in Tanzania is affordable and gives customers the assurance to enjoy a better internet experience on the biggest 4G+ network in the country.…

Africa is seen as one of the most promising regions for hotel developers. Aside from small chains and independents, four global hotel groups dominate signings and openings on the continent. Over the last four rolling quarters, as of September 2019, Accor, Hilton, Marriott International and Radisson Hotel Group have opened 2,800 rooms and signed deals for 6,600 rooms.

Across Africa, hotel development remains important in most advanced economies, such as Morocco and South Africa; and projects are multiplying in East Africa, especially in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

In West Africa, Nigeria is back on the development scene thanks to emerging regional destinations beyond Abuja and Lagos. Francophone Africa is also moving fast. The Ministry of Tourism of Ivory Coast has launched an ambitious national plan for tourism development, Sublime Cote d’Ivoire, and already announced over US$1bn investment in the sector.

Senegal is the other regional star, with local programmes …

Barrick Gold, world’s second-largest gold producer, will start to ship out gold estimated to be worth $280 million from Tanzania, the miner chief executive Mark Bristow told Reuters on Monday.

According to Bristow, the decision to export came after, Barrick and the government of Tanzania, settled its three-year- tax disputes.

On Friday, January 24, Barrick and Tanzania settled the dispute, and the signing ceremony which was televised marked a fresh start for Barrick which is the largest miner in Tanzania.

“The shipments will start immediately and, as we speak, we are mobilizing the concentrates. It’s (worth) around $260-$280 million depending on the price of metal prices at the time of sale” Mark Bristow told Reuters in a telephone interview

Spot gold, which rose 18% last year, is hovering at about $1,600 per ounce. And yet, Barrick’s operations in Tanzania, contribute almost 6 per cent of its gold output.

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Egypt is among the top ten emerging economies worldwide, Egypt’s Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala Al-Saeed said on the sidelines of the UK-Africa Investment Summit 2020 in London.

Saeed claimed that now is the best time to invest in Egypt, adding that the economic reforms undertaken by the Egyptian government are what helped the country to make the list of the world’s top-ten emerging economies.

She explained that Egypt has a very large market, with 60 per cent being the youth and the whole world is looking at investment in human capital.

Saeed added that Egypt has embarked on a wide range of reforms to invest in infrastructure, such as the development of the road network and the energy and electricity sectors, as well as the development of Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone).

Also Read: Italy funds agri-business development in Egypt and Iran

“The Suez Canal economic zone …

President Yoweri Museveni got assurance on Uganda’s beef exports to Britain and a commitment of $19.6 million funding at the UK-Africa Investment Summit.

The funding pledge is part of a $419 million UK Aid package for the 21 countries invited to the investment Summit.

The funding is intended to start a new phase of financial sector development (FSD) across Africa, to increase the existing financial sector programmes, set up and scale up new FSDs in high priority markets, including Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Ghana and the West African Monetary Union.

The State House of Uganda said that President Museveni held a bilateral meeting at the sidelines of the summit with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Also Read: Uganda Development Bank unveils $500 million plan for lending

President Museveni asked UK’s prime minister to encourage more British firms to invest in Uganda, saying that the country has vast investment opportunities in the …

Rwanda is eyeing an economic boost from its inaugural $40 million bond, which was issued at the UK-Africa Investment Summit 2020.

The  World Bank issued the Rwandan franc-denominated paper to finance government projects in the 2019-2020 financial year budget. The bond offers investors an annual coupon of 9.25 per cent which will mature on January 20, 2023.

“The World Bank has a big portfolio of investors, which the country will be banking on,” said Celestin Rwabukumba, the chief executive officer of Rwanda Stock Exchange.

The bond is the seventh in sub-Saharan African that the World Bank has issued. It is expected to increase confidence and help attract foreign private investment that the country needs to achieve sustainable long term economic growth.

Also Read: Rwanda launches campaign to collect 1M smartphones

“Capacity building in local capital markets is a critical component of international development finance. This transaction highlights the potential to …

The Italian Development Cooperation contributed more than €4.55 million to two United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) projects in Egypt and Iraq.

A signing ceremony to launch the projects took place at the UNIDO headquarters.

The Egypt project was developed after an in-depth analysis of the Egyptian tomato value chain. Egypt is the world’s fifth-largest producer of tomatoes producing about eight million tonnes of fresh tomatoes per year. Suitable climate, dual seasonality and fertile lands attributed to the success of the crop. However, only three to four per cent of the tomato crop is processed, with the processing sector affected by lack of integration with the supply chain.

Also Read: Israel starts exporting natural gas to Egypt

The project will boost the linkages between supply and processing factories, improve the technical skills of workers and managers in the factories, improve the quality of production and processing of tomatoes and expand …