Category: INTERNATIONAL
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“Africa will become the food basket of the world” – Dangote
Nigerian business leader Aliko Dangote told investors “Agriculture, agriculture, agriculture. Africa will become the food basket of the world.” In a packed room at the headquarters of global law firm Shearman and Sterling LLC high level business leaders and international diplomats invited by the Corporate Council for Africa to hear Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote,…
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S.African c.bank defies expectations by keeping rates at 6.75%
South Africa’s central bank kept its benchmark repo rate at 6.75 percent on Thursday, defying expectations of a cut based on easing inflation pressures and a sluggish recovery from a recession in the first half of the year. Of 26 economists polled by Reuters, 17 had predicted a 25 basis point cut and one a…
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Zimbabwe to pay $1.8BN in foreign arrears only when economy is stronger: finance minister
Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister on Wednesday said the southern African nation would not be able pay $1.8 billion in arrears to the World Bank and African Development Bank (AfDB) until economic fundamentals improve. Patrick Chinamasa said in a radio interview that a payment plan agreed with foreign lenders in 2015 in Lima, Peru, could only proceed…
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Kenya Power signs on IFC plan to curb electricity leakages
Kenya Power has tapped the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private arm, in a two-year project aimed at sealing electricity leakages that eat into the power distributor’s profit margins. The Sh80 million initiative, half financed by the IFC, will focus on reducing power losses on the utility firm’s network. The electricity losses have…
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Kenya to spend Sh2bn on cooking gas cylinder plan
Kenya will spend Sh2.2 billion on acquiring 720,000 cooking gas cylinders and several refill plant machinery through a State-owned fuels dealer as it rolls out a programme to entrench use of the commodity among low income households. The State Department of Petroleum Principal Secretary Engineer Andrew Kamau said the move would help the government avail affordable cooking…
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SA’s state-owned companies had been “captured”: Ramaphosa
South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, a leading contender to become head of the ruling ANC in December, stepped up his criticism of the government on Sunday, saying state-owned companies had been “captured” and funds looted from them. Ramaphosa’s remarks during a speech to an African National Congress meeting in the old diamond-mining town of…
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Zambia GDP growth seen rising to 6.1% by 2020
Zambia’s economy will grow by 5.0 percent in 2018, 5.1 percent in 2019 and 6.1 percent in 2020, up from 4.3 percent in 2017, the ministry of finance said in a statement on Sunday. The country’s fiscal deficit is expected to be 7.0 percent in 2017, 6.3 percent in 2018 and 4.3 percent in 2019,…
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Tanzania to nationalise diamonds of London-listed miner
Tanzania said on Saturday it planned to nationalise diamonds whose value it put at $29.5 million belonging to a mine majority owned by London-listed Petra Diamonds after it accused the miner of under-declaring its mineral exports. The diamonds were seized at the main airport in Tanzania’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam on Aug. 31 as…
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Kenya: KPMG kicks off recruitment of 107 graduate trainees
Audit firm KPMG has recruited 107 graduates to join its Kenyan operations, kicking off the hiring season for the Big Four Nairobi-based international accounting firms. KPMG’s move bucks the recent trend where staff cuts have loomed large as multiple companies have sent home thousands of employees, citing an unfavourable business environment. An additional 43 recruits…
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Kenya: Regulator likely to hold key rate at MPC meeting
The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) advisory committee meets next week with analysts projecting it will leave the benchmark lending rate unchanged. Ahead of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), analysts interviewed forecast the rate to remain steady as the shilling shows signs of resilience, with the country’s foreign reserves rising gradually. The inter-bank rate is…