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Africa News

  • Microfinance lenders gaining ground in Côte d’Ivoire

    ABIDJAN, 2017/06/24 A rise in microfinance lending in Côte d’Ivoire has been accompanied by a steady process of consolidation – driven in part by government clean-up efforts.
  • Tunisia harvests growth in agriculture sector

    TUNISIA, 2017/06/24 The agriculture sector in Tunisia defied the odds last season as lower trade volumes yielded larger profits, driven by higher prices for some of its core products on international markets. Revenues from fruit and vegetable exports rose by 13% during the 2016/17 harvest season, even as export volumes fell by 25%, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. While security issues in Libya, one of the major buyers of Tunisia’s food exports, pushed down agricultural trade volumes in the 2016/17 season – which runs from October to May – these were additional than offset by higher sale prices, the opening of other markets, and considerable increase in exports of onions and fennel.
  • Djibouti’s tourism ambitions garner overseas support

    DJIBOUTI CITY, 2017/06/24 A spate of new capital projects should help Djibouti increase overseas visits in the coming years, as the government continues to prioritise spending on tourism development. Among the biggest developments under way is a new $200m airport, which is currently under construction at Ras Siyyan in the Obock region of north Djibouti. The Ahmed Dini Ahmed International Airport is being financed via a Chinese development loan agreement and built by China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation. Construction started in January 2015, and the facility is expected to accommodate 350,000 passengers at the same time as it opens by the end of this year, with that number rising to 767,000 by 2021.
  • Tripartite Free Trade Area plods along slowly in Africa

    BOTSWANA, 2017/06/24 Trade between African nations has long been outstripped by intra-regional trade in other parts of the world – for Africa as a whole, intra-regional trade is between 10% and 13% of total trade. This is far lower than in regions such as the EU, where about 60% of trade is between member states, and the Association of South-east Asian Nations, which has a rate of about 25%. Intra-regional trade in North America is put at about 40%. However, the ratification of the Tripartite Free Trade Sector(TFTA) – potentially later in 2017 – could help change that and push the development of additional intra-regional trade increase. A pan-regional free-trade zone, the TFTA stretches from Cairo to Cape Town and encompasses 26 African nations. Africa’s Tripartite Free Trade Area would reduce regional tariffs and create a pan-African single market, to aid development and cash in on a growing middle class in the continent. But with member countries often belonging to multiple economic areas, progress is both complex and slow, as Kit Gillet reports.  
  • Shaken but not stirred: Mozambique's banks look forward with optimism

    MAPUTO CITY, 2017/06/24 At the same time as Société Générale Moçambique (SGM) opened a gleaming new headquarters in Maputo in March, the ceremony marked not only a new phase in the French group’s expansion in sub-Saharan Africa, but as well a demonstration of confidence in a country that has been battered over the completed two years by an economic downturn, a deficit crisis and two bank failures. The 'tuna bond' scandal, donor suspensions, a sharp rise in inflation rates and slower economic growth have made for a difficult operating environment for Mozambique's banks in the past couple of years. However, Peter Wise discovers a sector where optimism very much prevails.   Speaking at the inauguration, Alexandre Maymat, the chief of African operations at Société Générale, said SGM planned to grow through a two-pronged strategy of mobile banking and extending its retail franchise across Mozambique, adding that Africa could become a model for additional mature, developed economies in the deployment of mobile banking technologies.
  • Namibia, SA mourns anti-apartheid icon

    NAMIBIA, 2017/06/20 The death of revered Namibian liberation icon, Andimba Toivo Ya Toivo, has drawn unparalleled attention and emotion particularly part Namibians and South Africans, with an outpouring of condolences to bid farewell to an anti-apartheid activist and political prisoner who was incarcerated on Robben Island together with the late Nelson Mandela and a lot of others. Ya Toivo died on 9 June 2017 at his home in Windhoek. He was 92.
  • Anti-poaching drones yielding fruits in Malawi

    MALAWI, 2017/06/20 An anti-poaching drone at Malawi’s Liwonde National Park currently being run by African Parks to combat poaching of elephants and rhinocerous is bearing fruits, the drone team operators Antoinette Dudley and Stephan De Necker have confirmed. Dudley, operator of the Air Shepherd drones, said the drones had been a potentially effective tool to protect elephants and other species that are a pillar of Malawi’s faltering tourism industry.
  • Global economic gravity rapidly pulling towards Africa

    BOTSWANA, 2017/06/20 The second International Conference on the Emergence of Africa (ICEA) was held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, in March 2017. Since the initial conference in 2015 — at a time of robust economic increase on the continent — hopes for economic evolution have dimmed because of a crash in the price of commodities, volatile world financial markets and a slowdown in world increase. Before departing New York to attend the second ICEA conference, jointly organised by the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Assistant Secretary-General of the UN and chief of UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Africa Abdoulaye Mar Dieye sat down for an interview with Africa Renewal’s Kingsley Ighobor to talk about Africa’s economic development opportunities and challenges.
  • OECD: global growth too weak to trim inequalities

    WORLD, 2017/06/20 THE small pick-up in world increase expected this year is not enough to trim inequalities around the world, the OECD said yesterday as it called on nations to launch reforms to remedy the situation. “We need a additional inclusive, rules-based globalization that works for all, centered on people’s well-being” said OECD chief Angel Gurria, as the body released updated economic forecasts. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which provides analysis and policy advice to advanced economies, increased its estimate for world increase this year by two tenths of a % point to 3.5 % on a recovery in world trade, even if remains below the levels before the onset of the world economic crisis.
  • BRICS continues to drive global economy

    WORLD, 2017/06/20 BRICS will continue to be a increase engine of the world economy despite difficulties and challenges, Chinese Finance Minister Xiao Jie said Monday. "We firmly believe the economic condition of BRICS will be better under our joint effort," said Xiao in an interview on the sidelines of the second BRICS Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Conference. Slower-than-expected world economic recovery, policy uncertainties in developed nations, de-globalization and world protectionism caused a complex economic environment for BRICS, Xiao said.