Month: March 2020

Coffee production in South America is on a sharp increase and the resulting market flood is severely hurting East African coffee growers.

As supply increases, the market price is steadily falling. For trading blocs like the East African Community (EAC) where coffee is traditionally among the leading export commodities, the lower market prices spell a gloomy period up ahead.

In fact, for most of the East African countries, coffee accounts for 76 percent of the value of all agricultural exports put together. So losing the coffee market is a severe blow to economic development in East Africa and across the continent too.

Sector pundits say South America is using improved hybrids that are growing fast, producing better yields and they also have better after harvest storage and transportation facilities which are important to maintain the quality of the grain.

For example, statistics show that Brazil is now the world’s leading …

 The Tanzanian Ministry of Health has announced the presence of the first case of the coronavirus on Monday, March 16.

The case was found in Northern part of Tanzania, on a female Tanzanian patient, 46-year-old, who arrived in the country on March from Belgium onboard RwandAir plane and landed at Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) on March 15.

The patient also visited Sweden and Denmark between March 3 and 13, before her return to Tanzania.

Despite Tanzania being prepared with thermal scanners installed in all airports, the patient passed the health checks undetected, as her body temperature was at the normal level, hence—the condition was not detected

According to the minister of health Ummy Mwalimu, the patient was sceptical of her health even after being cleared.

“From what she told me on the phone, while in Belgium, she lived in a home where the owner had suffered from the coronavirus,” the …

At least 27 African states have so far been affected by the Covid-19 coronavirus with nearly 350 people diagnosed with the virus across the continent.

As the virus continues on its upward trajectory in Africa, concerted efforts are seeking to arrest its spread with support coming from different entities. The latest announcement of support is by Alibaba Founder Jack Ma who has pledged to donate medical supplies including masks, testing kits and medical use protective suits and face shields to all the 54 African countries.

In the statement posted on his Twitter account, Ma said that Africa can be one step ahead of the coronavirus which has already been classified a pandemic by the WHO.

Read: Coronavirus shakes economies, world forced to change perspective on Africa

Through his Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation, Ma has already donated medical supplies to other countries hardest hit by the virus, including Japan, …

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Economies around the world are taking a beating from Corvid-19 as aspects of their production and consumption take a nosedive.

With countries now dependent on each other for trade, sources of raw materials and labour, the coronavirus is bringing an end the approach to doing business globally as we know it. With much more connections through travel, the virus has found a way of stymying growth in several countries- including China, the epicentre of the outbreak- and many others which are still finding ways and means of addressing the challenge.

The worst-hit at this stage are those that depend on goods and services from China.

See: Intra-regional trade could create 2 million new jobs for East Africa

And while Africa is still largely safe from the ravages of the virus, many countries are already feeling the heat since they cannot procure goods from China following the lockdown and …

The East African region has a combined GDP of US$ 880 billion and a population of 437 million.

Despite this attractive combination, the economies of East Africa are still highly fragmented with low intra-regional trade and investment levels. To make matters worse, the trade and investment have been declining.

The region’s biggest economies of Kenya and Ethiopia have an annual bilateral trade worth less than US$ 100 million since they barely trade with each other.

While these two economise paint a rough picture of the trade imbalances in the region, trading within the East African Community (EAC) is higher with exports peaking in 2013 at US$ 3.5 billion. Again, unfortunately, by 2017 the exports volumes had declined with earnings reducing by 31 per cent to just US$ 2.4 billion.

The lack of trade integration poses a serious impediment to the future development of the region despite the fact that the …

South Africa, Africa’s second-largest economy is still experiencing power cuts off as the national power utility stated today on Thursday that, nation-wide power cuts across South Africa of up to 4,000 megawatts will last throughout the weekend and power kicking back on Sunday

According to information from a South African financial publication Moneyweb, the power cuts are due to the wait of regulatory approval to reconnect a unit at a nuclear power station in Cape Town (Koeberg).

Eskom, which produces more than 90 per cent of the electricity in Africa‘s most industrialized economy, ramped up power cuts to 4 000 MW on Tuesday after a fault with a pump at Koeberg, the country’s only nuclear station.

“Due to a shortage of generation capacity resulting from unplanned breakdowns, Eskom will continue implementing Stage 4 load-shedding until further notice. We expect that load-shedding, at various stages, may continue into the weekend,” Eskom …

It is now a fact that the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is a pandemic according to World Health Organization (WHO), and just from that stand-point, the tourism sector is not safe from the pandemic pinch.

The world is on its heels, nations are now rolling a series of aviation restrictions to curb the virus outbreak, limiting numerous economic and societal operations over space and time—which also have ripple effects on the continent’s tourism sphere.

Currently, more than 4,900 people have died and over 132,000 have been infected globally, according to the WHO.

In Africa—the virus has recently brought two death (in Egypt and Algeria) and serious cases in several nations, including Ethiopia, Morocco, Senegal, Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South Africa, Togo, and Kenya.

According to WHO, there are now more than 100 cases recorded in 11 countries in Africa, Egypt having more than half of the …

Economists define a recession as a subdued growth that lasts at least six months and goes for another 18 months while depression can last up to a decade. The global economy was already heading to a recession even before the outbreak and spread of COVID-19.

What has followed is global market players and governments pumping millions of dollars to contain the spread of the virus that has Wuhan city and its epicenter. The US and Europe have already announced setting up of special kitty to treat, contain and mitigate the effects of the virus both as a disease as well as the economic heat that comes with the disease.

China, the second-largest economy in the world and Italy- Europe’s third-largest economy and 8th globally- have been severely affected by cities like Rome remaining ghost-towns as economic and commercial activities come to a halt. There is a growing fear that the …

For Tullow Oil, the year 2020 has not started particularly well with collapsing hopes, poor oil output and boardroom maneuvers almost pushing the British oil firm into oblivion. In the peak of the storm, the company lost half its value on the stock market after bad fairing in Ghana and Guyana and a delay in the sale of the Ugandan stake. This led to global readjustment with the Kenyan operations announcing job cuts.

This is a situation well explained by Dorothy Thompson, Executive Chair, Tullow Oil plc.  “This has been an intense period for Tullow as we have worked hard on a thorough review of the business which has led to clear conclusions and decisive actions. We are focused on delivering reliable production, lowering our cost base and managing our portfolio to reduce our debt and strengthen our balance sheet. Even with recent events in oil markets, Tullow’s assets remain …

Tanzania’s ministry of finance revealed on Wednesday, that it was exploring various techniques, including fostering supervision of the use of Electronic Tax Stamps (ETS).

This is part of the government’s plans to raise revenue collections and speed up the process of creating an enabling environment for Tanzania’s industrialization journey, according to information from The Citizen.

It is another step taken by the Tanzanian government to enhance revenue collection to fund various development projects, as frequently rallied by the Tanzanian President John Magufuli.

Just last year, Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) collected over $ 735 million in taxes in September 2019, the highest amount ever collected since the entity inception in 1996.

Tanzania’s Finance and Planning minister, Dr.Philip Mpango, presentation on the government’s development plan and budget framework estimates for 2020/21 financial year, revealed that Tanzania has experienced a significant rise in revenues during the first seven months of the 2019/2020, but …