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Listed real estate is also expected to continue performing poorly in 2021 with the Fahari I-Reit having opened the year at a relatively low trading price of Sh5.8 per share.

This is coupled with the expected negative performance of the office sector and lack of investor appetite in the instrument due to negative investor sentiments.…

namanga

At the onset of the pandemic, the two countries, like all others in the region and elsewhere in the world, Tanzania and Kenya closed their borders, for a while. However it soon dawned on both that closing their borders from each other (and their neighbours) was but a band-aid solution.

The underlying trade logistics are already so entwined that no country could do without the other, short of losing hard-gained economic ground. So, no sooner had they closed their borders than the two countries were forced to reopen them.

That is where the third set of complications surfaced; the first — the onset of the coronavirus — was not through any fault of the countries. The second — the closure of their borders in line with international recommendations — was in response to the first, and the third was the lack of a concerted, joint response.

It is the third …

Cost of living in African cities

The Mercer 2020 gives the cost of living in African cities giving the most expensive and least expensive cities to live in Africa in its Cost of living survey.

The annual survey ranks cities cost of living based on the prices of goods and services such as rent, food and clothing.

The survey is mostly used by multinational organisations to set remuneration packages for their foreign-based employees.

“The Covid-19 pandemic reminds us that sending and keeping employees on international assignments is a huge responsibility and a difficult task to manage,” said Ilya Bonic, career president and head of Mercer Strategy.

According to the report, in East Africa, Kampala Uganda is the least expensive city to live in while Nairobi Kenya is the most expensive city, Kigali Rwanda takes the second least-expensive city followed by Dar-es-Salaam Tanzania.

Also Read: Cost of living to go up for EAC

The report sampled 40 …

President Kenyatta dismisses port grab as mere propaganda noting that Kenya was already way ahead in servicing its debts to China

Every month, Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway moves an average of 200 cargo trains from the coastal city of Mombasa to Nairobi’s inland container depot. With it, it moves at least 1,000 containers to Nairobi. This has left a bitter taste among residents of Mombasa, who have over the years depended on the undertakings around the port for jobs.

SGR, which has been billed as the biggest transport infrastructure project in the Kenya’s history, is expected to haul about nine million tonnes of cargo to make a profit of Sh5.08 billion a year, averaging Sh424 million per month, compared with 990,488 tonnes carried in the first year when SGR made a loss of Sh10 billion.

The SGR has so far made Sh10.9 billion from cargo and passenger business since it started operating, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics’ economic indicators report released in December 2018.

The cracks on the …

Nairobi's Airport shines even as Kenya Airways struggle

Jomo Kenyatta International Airport is the 2nd fastest growing airport in the word cargo ranking. This has been revealed in the Airports Council International (ACI) latest World Airport Traffic Report, which highlights top airports for passengers, cargo and aircraft movements and showcases the world’s fastest-growing airports for 2018.

JKIA was ranked 2nd in the ‘Fastest Growing Airports (Handing over 250,000 metric tons of air cargo)’ category, after handling over 342,000 metric tons of air cargo in 2018, a 25% growth from the what was reported in the year 2017.

This ranking came as a surprise to many given the dwindling fortunes of Kenya Airways which has been facing a hard economic time coupled with staff strikes and poor profitability. Kenya Airways management has fallen out with its pilots over continued losses at the airline, in the latest of many stand-offs between the two groups. This is in the wake of …

L-R: Kenya Livestock Producers Association CEO, Patrick Kimani, Bidco Agriculture Manager, John Kariuki, Makueni County Governor, Kivutha Kibwana and Safaricom Chief Enterprise Officer, Rita Okuthe. Bidco Africa has enlisted more than 600 farmers from Makueni County to supply sunflower seeds for edible oil production. www.exchange.co.tz

In the next five years, Safaricom’s mobile agriculture platform DigiFarm will outgrow M-Pesa at least according to the company’s outlook.

DigiFarm which currently has more than 200,000 farmers using the service daily was launched in partnership with Farmdrive, iProcure and Arifu.

The platform which aims at digitising entire agriculture value chains in Kenya has 7,000 farmers successfully taking loans using the app.

This money is usually spent on purchasing seeds, fertilizers and pesticides.

The M-Pesa Ecosystem

Safaricom Chief Financial Services Officer, Sitoyo Lopokoiyit, says that DigiFarm has grown phenomenally since its launch in October 2017.

So far, the platform has over 1 million farmers registered.

“In line with our Purpose of Transforming lives, we have provided a mobile technology platform for the smallholding farmers to access a suite of information and financial services, said Lopokoiyit.

Within DigiFarm, farmers can access credit and other financial facilities.

These farmers can also share …