Browsing: South Africa

Mining MX the South African mining industry journal published its 2022 edition of the Mining Yearbook recently. For many years,…

China presently has the largest sum of foreign exchange reserves in the world. When its over US$ 3 trillion in reserves is added to the reserves of the other BRICS member states the questions as to why they cannot issue their own currency start to grow louder.

Talks of a common currency fizzled out as more pressing national and international matters eclipsed the idea. This year 2022 has seen renewed calls for a common reserve currency emerge once again. This time Russia is leading the call for the creation of a reserve currency that will be an alternative to the United States dollar as a mechanism for the settlement of international transactions.

Russia’s motive for making such a call is obvious, the country has been at war with Ukraine since February 2022. This aggression against Ukraine has earned Russia some of the most stringent economic sanctions in history. What has been the greatest pain point is that Russia has lost access to at least half of its foreign exchange reserves since the beginning of its war with Ukraine.

The war in Ukraine has shown how dependent Europe is on natural gas for power. Before the conflict broke out…

Zimbabwe has been experiencing intermittent power generation shortfalls due to an ageing plant at its Kariba hydropower station and the main coal-driven power generators at Hwange.

According to Crisis 24, Zimbabwe will likely remain susceptible to rounds of load shedding through 2022 and possibly beyond if additional power production capacity is not made available. In mid-June, a circular from Meikles Hotel in Zimbabwe said that they have been operating on generator power for about a week and were now offering guests buckets of hot water to bath with. This is also one of the effects of the increased power cuts evident, although it is a few months apart.

Crisis 24 added that temporary commercial and communications disruptions are possible while load shedding and unscheduled disruptions are taking place; cellular and mobile services could be affected. Traffic disruptions and longer driving times are possible during these periods due to malfunctioning traffic signals. Power outages could also result in the temporary unavailability of essential services such as ATMs and filling stations.

Partnerships have largely driven technology innovation and global collaborations among tech companies, and Alibaba Cloud is not slowing down in…

CyborgIntell Africa says it will work closely with financial institutions and other enterprises to help them rapidly develop, deploy and operationalize AI applications at scale.

A statement says the CyborgIntell platform addresses the key challenges companies face in the data science/machine learning lifecycle – from data selection and modelling, and operationalizing AI, to managing risk and governance.

“AI is a powerful and transformative technology, yet many companies across the world find it difficult to unlock its full potential. More than a third (36%) of organizations take more than 90 days to deploy data science machine learning (ML) projects, while the failure rate of such initiatives is estimated to be 85% across industries,” said McLachlan, CyborgIntell managing director.

Growthpoint Properties Limited published its financial results for 2021 on the 15th of September 2022. The real estate investment trust…

The agreement allows Liquid to leverage the Ka-band capabilities of the Eutelsat Konnect satellite to provide broadband Internet services to businesses in Uganda, South Sudan, and the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Liquid becomes the first ground gateway provider for Eutelsat Konnect in Sub-Saharan Africa, broadening broadband coverage and creating new business opportunities in Africa. It is Eutelsat’s long-standing partner.

Under a long-term contract that was renewed and extended in 2021, it operates the Ku-band resources of the EUTELSAT 7B satellite to provide VSAT services in sub-Saharan Africa.

The remainder of Anglo’s coal assets were demerged from the group and bundled into a new company called Thungela Resources Limited. This strategy in coal mining circles is called “mine to mouth” and is being continued by Seriti. Eskom, South Africa’s power utility, has an agreement where its thermal power stations are fed with coal from the company’s Kriel and New Largo mines. These mines are adjacent to the power stations.

Seriti Resources (the company’s name is from the native Sotho language and means integrity) was formed in 2017. Mike Teke, through his investment vehicle Masimong Holdings Group owns 25% of Seriti Resources.

The remainder of the shares in the energy company is owned by Sandile Zungu’s Zungu Investments Company, Thebe Investments Corporation, and Community Investment Holdings.

Much like it did in South America, EBANX wants to centre its strategy on collaborations and partnerships with global merchants. The company processes payments for Uber, Airbnb, and over 1,000 digital companies throughout Latin America.

In a statement, the CEO and co-founder, João Del Valle, explained that although Africa’s digital economy is still nascent, its exciting potential motivated his company’s decision. “Africa’s fast-growing digital economy is only in its early days, and it’s projected to grow up and to the right for the next few decades. Together with local players, EBANX will be a catalyst to realize the many benefits of a digital economy even faster.”

“Expanding our solutions to African countries speaks directly to EBANX’s mission of creating access, and having Pipefy as a merchant makes this moment even more special to us, expanding solutions and services throughout regions full of opportunities,” Paula Bellizia, the President of Global Payments at EBANX, said in a statement.