While the U.S. and China are trying to outdo each other with import tariffs and the U.K. wants to break away from the European Union, African leaders are working on a free-trade agreement that will cover a whole continent. Talks to establish the African Continental Free Trade Area started in 2015 and while many signatures…
South Africa’s National Treasury on Thursday rallied behind Dan Matjila, the chief executive of the government’s 2 trillion rand ($160 billion) state pension fund, dismissing a Bloomberg report that said it was considering his suspension. Matjila, who has headed the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) since 2014, has come under pressure in recent weeks after an…
International donors have pledged $1.71 billion (1.45 billion euros) to support The Gambia’s democratic transition. The pledge was made at an international donors’ conference hosted by the EU and The Gambia on Tuesday. The conference was aimed at strengthening The Gambia’s democracy and development under President Adama Barrow, who came to power in January 2017,…
Tycoon Humphrey Kariuki’s Great Lakes Africa Energy (GLAE) has entered an agreement with the Mozambique government to generate electricity using natural gas for domestic use at a cost of Sh40 billion ($400 million). The UK-based pan-African energy solution firm develops and operates power projects in southern Africa. The agreement signed last Friday in Maputo will…
London-based private equity company Actis LLP will take an 88 percent stake in the 100-megawatt Kipeto Wind Power in Kenya after buying out most of the project’s other shareholders, one of the farm’s founders said. Kenneth Namunje said he and two partners at Craftskills Wind Energy International Ltd. will cede some shareholding to Actis and…
The risk of a reversal in the inflation drop that has characterised many of the biggest African economies in the last year, will likely mean a freeze on borrowing costs. Rate decisions across Africa in the next two weeks are likely to confirm the continent’s biggest economies have mostly ceased a wave of easing that’s…
Zimbabwe has signed a US $1bn deal with Sinosteel Corp in a development that will see the Chinese firm building a 400MW coal bed methane-fired power plant in Matabeleland North Province and setting up new ferrochrome smelters at Zimasco. During the signing ceremony, President Emmerson Mnangagwa revealed that the first phase of the implementation will involve drilling of…
Amid great fanfare 44 African countries signed the long-awaited African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) earlier this year. The bloc is expected to boost intra-African trade – pegged at less than 20% – by eliminating import duties and scaling back tariffs. If fully implemented, a market of 1.2bn people with a combined GDP of $2.5…
China’s largest state-owned aluminum producer is pushing further into Africa to secure supplies of raw materials used to make the metal. Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd.’s Hong Kong unit plans to invest as much as $164 million in the Boffa bauxite project in Guinea, which has a total cost of $706 million, Chalco said in…
Ivory Coast is set to construct a mega thermal power plant after a complete negotiations with the local unit of France’s Eranove SA over a US $530 m deal. That could result in expansion of the county’s generation capacity by 5%. The gas fired facility which will be owned by Cie Ivoirienne de Production d’Electricite,…