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North Africa News

  • Egypt's micro-credit NGO lifting women out of poverty

    EGYPT, 2016/07/04 Low gain earning women are generally considered risky in the banking industry. That means they cannot borrow and as a result have no credit history. That’s as well the story of Egyptian women who though have small businesses supporting their families, cannot raise credit to expand. Sabah, owns a small business and has experienced the difficulty in doing business with traditional banks.
  • Morocco set to approve 10 Islamic banks before the end of 2016

    CASABLANCA, 2016/07/04 Morocco’s Central Bank has said it would start approving Islamic banks this year with the aim of allowing business to begin in early 2017. The central bank said it had received seven requests to open Islamic banks and three to open windows selling Islamic products. Two Gulf banks want to establish fully owned subsidiaries while four others are partnering with local banks, an official said.
  • India’s African safari

    INDIA, 2016/07/04 June 2016 has seen an unprecedented intensification of India’s relationship with Africa. In the initial week, Vice President Hamid Ansari visited Tunisia and Morocco. In the second week, President Pranab Mukherjee launched his whirlwind tour of Western and Southern Africa, covering Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Namibia. And, in July, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa. Ever since the Third India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) in 2015, Modi has been building bridges with African nations, soliciting support for a host of multilateral initiatives. It’s as well unabashedly about business, a good example of geo-politics conference geo-economics. For instance, Ansari’s visit to Morocco and Tunisia are key, because India imports phosphate — a critical raw material for fertiliser production — from these nations. Ansari as well inaugurated an India-Morocco Chamber of Commerce during his trip to Rabat.
  • Commodity dip hits China’s little Africa

    CHINA, 2016/07/04 With few customers at his wholesale jeans store in Guangzhou these days, Nigerian trader Brien Chuks busies himself looking next his three-month old baby. “Last year I sold 12 shipping containers of jeans back to west Africa but this year I haven’t managed to fill a single one,” says Mr Chuks, who operates from the Canaan market in China’s third-biggest city, like a lot of other Africa-focused exporters. “The Nigerian economy depends on oil so with the crude price having fallen so low, business is very hard.” In a sign of the circularity in the world economy, the Africa-focused traders who have long thrived in Guangzhou are suffering because of a commodities-driven slump in their home continent that from presently on originated in China. At the same time as rapid Chinese increase pumped up prices of oil and metals, resource-rich parts of Africa thrived, buying additional consumer goods from Guangzhou. Presently the opposite has happened. Sitting in the midst of China’s manufacturing heartland, Guangzhou has long been a centre for trade with Africa.
  • For Morocco, its proximity to Europe has been significant throughout its history.

    CASABLANCA, 2016/06/28 With growing economic prosperity and continuing political stability, Morocco continues to attract foreign investors. With an increasing focus on encouraging international commercial dispute resolution in Casablanca, the country is seeking to present itself as a business hub, as law firms push to open up in the region. Natasha Mellersh reports. For Morocco, its proximity to Europe has been significant throughout its history. The late King Hassan of Morocco described Morocco as “a tree whose roots reach deep into the African soil and whose leaves breathe in the winds of Europe”.
  • Factories in the sun European firms bring carmaking and an aerospace industry to north Africa

    CASABLANCA, 2016/06/21 CONSIDERING the help provided to large foreign manufacturers in Morocco over the completed few years, it would have taken a critical effort by them to fail. Renault, a French carmaker, for example, is thriving: of 2.8m cars it made globally last year, one in ten trundled out from its two shiny assembly plants in Tangier and Casablanca. It hopes from presently on to make 400,000 cars a year.
  • Tunisia augments ICT exports and connectivity

    TUNISIA, 2016/06/19 A strategic five-year plan targeting Tunisia’s ICT sector, Tunisie Digitale 2020, looks to dramatically increase the industry’s contribution to employment and revenues. First launched in 2014 as Tunisie Digitale 2018, the plan was revised last year to harmonise its timelines and objectives with the government’s new five-year general economic development plan for the 2016-20 period. The plan aims to create 100,000 jobs and double the GDP of the country’s digital economy to TD9bn (€4.1bn) by 2020. Sector exports, meanwhile, are expected to increase four-fold between 2014 and 2020 to TD4bn (€1.7bn).
  • More than 41 million in southern Africa face food insecurity

    AFRICA, 2016/06/17 An estimated 41 million people are food insecure with 21 million people requiring immediate assistance in Southern Africa, a regional economic bloc said on Wednesday, next a drought ravaged the region. The Southern African Development Community director for food, agriculture and natural resources, Margaret Nyirenda, said in a statement that a new statement as well showed that nearly 2.7 million children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
  • Algeria looks to boost capital markets liquidity

    ALGERIA, 2016/06/11 With traditional lending constrained by lower hydrocarbons receipts, public authorities are redoubling their efforts to develop Algeria’s capital markets. By encouraging listings on the country’s equity and deficit markets, officials are looking to relieve pressure on the national Treasury and create new investment opportunities for financial institutions. “The Treasury and the national no longer possess the budgetary means to finance development projects at the same level as in recent years, which has resulted in a redistribution of funding channels and underscoring the need to develop financial markets,” Abdelhakim Berrah, president of the Commission for the Organisation and Oversight of the Stock Market (Commission de Surveillance des Opérations de Bourse, COSOB), told OBG.
  • REITs to drive commercial real estate growth in Morocco

    CASABLANCA, 2016/06/11 The roll out of new investment vehicles is helping stoke growth in Morocco’s commercial real estate sector. Last year Morocco passed legislation allowing for the creation of real estate investment trusts (REITs). Under the law, REITs are required to invest at least 60% of their assets in real estate, while the remainder can be invested in other assets to help diversify their investment portfolio.   In early 2016 the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) joined forces with Moroccan retail distributor Label Vie Group by investing in its retail real estate subsidiary Vecteur LV (VLV). The aim of both the EBRD and Label Vie is to launch the country’s inaugural REIT and attract more investment in Morocco’s real estate sector.