Month: February 2020

The Dangote Fertiliser project will create thousands of direct and indirect jobs in construction and related fields…

The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) signed a Line of Credit (LOC) totalling $80 million to help scale up key investments in Botswana.

The AFDB said in a statement that the Botswana Development Corporation will only lend to specific target groups, focusing on industrialisation including transport,  manufacturing and service sectors that have important development impact.

The repayment period will be over 10 years, including a two-year grace period.

Also Read:  IMF urges Botswana to start consolidating in 2020

“The African Development Bank is excited to collaborate with BDC to promote private sector development, as well as support broad-based economic growth in Botswana,” said  Mohamed Kalif, Manager, Financial Intermediation and Inclusion Division signing on behalf of the Bank.

Kalif said that the facility is the largest to be extended to a financial institution in Botswana and that the Bank is very proud of its partnership with …

Banque Misr, Egypt’s second-largest bank, has announced plans to enter the Kenyan market as it seeks lending deals in East Africa and serving Egyptian firms operating in the region.

To fund the Kenya expansion the state-run bank plans to borrow $250 million from international lenders this year. The Kenyan expansion will also coincide with planned entry into Somalia and Djibouti.

“We are in talks with two international institutions on loans with competitive interest rates,” said Mohamed Eletreby, Banque Misr chairman.

Mr Eletreby added that Banque Misr could enter Kenya through setting up branches or representative offices.

Also Read: Absa Kenya’s US$ 100 million kitty for women entrepreneurs

The bank has branches in the UAE and France, as well as units in Lebanon and Germany and representative offices in China, Russia, South Korea and Italy.

The Banque Misr announcement marks the latest declaration of interest by an Egyptian lender to enter …

Uganda’s growth in the economy has not been fast enough to create enough jobs with higher earnings for one of the world’s fastest-growing workforces.

In Uganda, the World Bank reports that agriculture has remained an earnest tool for most of the youth.

According to the Bank, youth unemployment is growing with each year, 400,000 youth entering the labour market and competing for only 80,000 formal jobs. In Uganda, 75 per cent of the workforce and 55 per cent of youth are engaged in the agriculture sector.

Young Ugandans need faster economic growth combined with a faster economic pace of economic transformation to create higher productive jobs for the future economy, says a world bank report researched and authored by Dino Merotto.

According to the report, Uganda is the world’s youngest country with a median age of just 15.9. From 2010 – 2015 the country also has one of the world’s …

Economic growth generated through digital payments could add up to 3.5 per cent to Egypt’s GDP, according to Visa.

Visa, which describes itself as the world’s leader in digital payments, in partnership with the Egyptian Banking Institute (EBI), hosted the Egypt Payment Security and Digital Solutions Conference earlier this week.

The conference was attended by leaders from Egyptian banks, traders and fintech firms, it featured presentations by Visa experts on the latest cyber-security trends and digital solutions.

The company also presented its security roadmap for Egypt’s payments ecosystem, which is based on the strategic security pillars of protecting data, devaluing data, harnessing data and empowering consumers.

It includes facilitating the deployment of best-in-class digital solutions such as contactless cards and tokenisation which is a process where personal data is protected by replacing it with a randomly generated number or token so as to support both online payments and in-store, as …

Covid-19 and years of loss making make it an uphill task for newly appointed Kenya Airways PLC Managing Director and CEO Allan Kilavuka.…

South Africa’s Finance Minister Tito Mboweni budget speech brought strength to the nation’s currency, rand—after proposing cuts to the controversial public sector wage bill, on February 26.

According to information from Reuters, financial markets seemed to appreciate the move, which posed a threat to South Africa’s public finances.

At 0650 GMT, the South African rand traded at 15.2550 versus the dollar, which is 0.4 per cent stronger than its previous close.

According to a South African financial publication, Moneyweb, Minister Mboweni expects the public sector wage bill to reduce by $2.4 billion in 2020/21, $3.5 billion in 2021/22, and $4.4 billion in 2022/23.

Further, In the 2020 budget review policy document, National Treasury said the medium-term reductions in the wage bill will target public servants in the national and provincial departments and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that delight unfettered access to taxpayer-funded government bailouts.

On the meanwhile, the scenario has been …

Zimbabwe, an economically challenged southern Africa nation will soon face another economical hard-pinch as the sate power transmission company said on Thursday it intends to increase its electricity tariff by 19.02 per cent, kicking in on March 1.

According to information from Reuters, the utility said that raising inflation and weakening exchange rate were factors being the tariff hike.

Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), which is responsible for the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in Zimbabwe, is also facing challenges meeting power demands in the nation facing worst economic crisis in a decade.

According to the World Bank data, electricity access in Zimbabwe stands at 40 per cent.

Energy advocacy groups such as Sustainable Energy For All noted that—due to economic challenges, Zimbabwe cant explore its renewable energy resources (solar energy in particular), that’s why only 16 per cent of rural dwellers have access to power versus 78 per …

From July, Importers in East Africa will operate under a common Customs bond, which guarantees uniform import duties and taxes across all partner states.

Currently, due to the application of different duty rates, valuation and sensitivity of goods,  the value of Customs bonds varies from country to country.

In Kenya, importers of transit goods are required to secure a Customs bond issued by an insurance company, while sensitive or delicate cargo requires a bank or cash guarantee.  In Rwanda and Uganda, an insurance company the issues custom bond with rates based on the taxes charged by the destination country.

The common Customs bond will reduce the cost of doing business and goods turnaround time, according to the East Africa Community Single Custom Territory Monitoring and Evaluation Committee.

During the Council of Ministers in July, this common Customs bond is expected to be adopted as part of the pillar to create …

As Kenya’s SME sector grows through a tough economic time, mentors are increasingly targeting the sector to offer guidance to small businesses.

The latest entrant is Wylde International which has invested Sh50 million in a one-stop-shop entrepreneurs centre in Nairobi dubbed SNDBX.

SNDBX gives entrepreneurs and SMEs timely and personalised access to round the clock business growth experts to help face challenges they are experiencing.

The centre is an all-access pass to more than 20 experts including finance, human resources, tax, legal, branding, marketing, debt collection, innovation, governance and risk management among others.

Speaking during the launch, Wylde International Chief Executive Joram Mwinamo, said the move was necessitated by the need in the market to help entrepreneurs scale up.

“An environment where ambitious entrepreneurs have a supporting cast of seasoned professionals. The SNDBX is a First of its kind in the world, developed over 10 years of working with entrepreneurs, …