Browsing: IMF

These foreign exchange controls and restrictions will pose challenges for international businesses and foreign investors in Tanzania.

When introducing approvals and making them necessary for just about every kind of transaction, foreign exchange restrictions add a level of complexity to investors’ business model and implementation strategy.

The Tanzania Foreign Exchange Regulations require authorisations and justifications for several areas including exporting, importing or simply where a non-resident is directly investing in Tanzania.

While there could be a problem with income being paid outside of Tanzania for activities that are taking place in Tanzania, putting foreign exchange controls rarely constitutes the answer to encourage investors to keep their funds in the country.

Consequently, China has carefully abandoned its strong preference for bilateral dealing with problem debtors. The Chinese state avoids being a rule-taker compared to the West on debt issues. Still, it increasingly appears to recognize that multilateral approaches – ideally on an ‘a la carte’ basis – can help contain both the pressures on its African partners and its challenges.

China, therefore cautiously supported the DSSI for some African nations when it came to effect in April 2020, and similarly, the Common Framework launched in 2021. However, the slow implementation of the Common Framework brings to light four specific challenges linked to China’s role.  

First is China’s discomfort with the independent and central role played by the IMF in controlling how much a country can afford to pay through its debt sustainability analysis (DSA). Second is the alarm of privates, and public sector lenders in the West over a lack of accountability in the total amount of debt China lent to African nations. 

The goal here is to have more companies register on the island to increase Zanzibar’s internal revenue through taxes and related fees. The move is also expected to create employment on the island as companies open subsidiaries they will naturally have to hire.

Overall, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF ), last year’s growth of around 4 per cent is expected to pick up to about 5½ per cent this year and to then maintain a steady growth of the next few years, assuming no other pandemic strikes that are.

Ceterisperibus, should the economic reforms announced by the new administration and the envisaged improvements in the business climate materialize, then medium-term growth could reach 6 per cent, says the IMF.

The RoRo, along with the ramp and terminal were completed as of March 2021 after three years of dedicated construction works. With its completion, vehicles can now be driven, not carried, off the ship.

With this development, large vessels that took up to four days to offload and turn around now take only 17 hours to offload, that is say, an average of three vehicles per minute offloaded per minute.

The terminal is also a major game-changer because instead of driving two km in search of parking, vehicles can now be parked in the spacious berth with a handling capacity of 3,000 vehicles at a time.

Africa is home to at least 47 foreign military outposts, with the US controlling the largest number. Djibouti is the only country in the world to host both American and Chinese outposts.

A recent survey by Afrobarometer across 34 countries indicated that 63 per cent of the population see China’s influence in Africa as positive, whilst 60 per cent made similar comments about the US. Are there benefits to be extracted from this searing rivalry?

Africa’s Agenda 2063 on the ‘Africa we want’ set by the African Union, advocates under its first aspiration, a ‘Prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development’ and ‘A Strong, United, Resilient and Influential Global Player and Partner’ under aspiration 7.

This comes as the IMF has downgraded economic prospects for countries in this cluster. The downgrades have, however, been offset relatively by projections for some commodity producers and exporters that were upgraded on the back of rising commodity prices.

The economic prospects between wealthy nations and low-income countries are expected to be divergent and this divergence will remain of great concern to multilateral lenders and world leaders. In wealthy nations, for example, aggregate output for the cluster economies is expected to regain its pre-pandemic trend path in 2022 and exceed it by 0.9% in 2024 whereas the cluster of nations comprise emerging markets and developing economies (excluding China) will remain 5.5% below their pre-pandemic forecasts in 2024.

This event should it occur as forecast will set back improvements in living standards.

Tanzania: The government, through the Central Bank of Tanzania has successfully kept the economy not only afloat but reasonably expanding…

The question is, what if one day you went to pay for expenses with your card or mobile app and it returned an error message? Or was your service provider that issues your money declared bankrupt? Scary, right?
Recently, customers have been converting their regular traditional money into e-money. Service providers have enabled the transfer of electronic money to banks, from person to person, and for making payments.
For regulators and supervisors that control the protection of consumers’ e-money and digital currencies, coming up with legal bindings and restrictions in the fast-changing sector has become very challenging. These regulators and supervisors must devise ways to protect customers from a possible system failure and ultimately prevent them from losing their funds.

The lender stated during the conference that the country’s economic objectives were still under threat from unsustainable debt.
The government announced last week that external debt grew to US$13.7 billion in September, up from roughly US$10.7 billion the previous year.
Zimbabwe’s debt accounts for more than half of the country’s GDP.

The government of Kenya’s involvement has borne fruit. This Christmas week, KQ has increased the frequency of flights to the United States from two to four a week.

Bookings have picked up and the cost of a one-way ticket has risen from US$ 900 (KSh90,000) to US$10,00 (KSh101,305). This comes as a relief to the Kenya Airways Chairman, Michael Joseph, who had earlier said in an interview with a local station in Kenya last year that the pandemic would continue to affect demand for air travel for the next two to three years.

The airline said they had increased the number of direct flights to New York to enable families to reconnect and unite during this festive season.