Sonangol EP, Angola’s state oil company, and Cohydro of neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo will develop a shared oil block off the coast of the two countries, Congolese Oil Minister Crispin Atama said. The nations each control half of the block, which is in a so-called zone of common interest that overlaps with part of Angola’s block 14 in the Atlantic Ocean, he said in an interview in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, on April 19.
Auteur/autrice : Rédaction Financial Afrik
The International Monetary Fund urged Sudan to divert more than $3 billion in compensation it’s set to receive from South Sudan to back reforms that will provide the government with more reliable revenue streams. Sudan will get the funds over three-and-a-half years as part of an agreement last year to help the country cope with the loss of oil revenue it suffered when South Sudan seceded in July 2011. The country will also collect transportation and processing fees from South Sudan, which exports its crude via Sudanese pipelines to a terminal at Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Africa’s health sector needs at least US$30billion of investment in the next ten years to bridge the infrastructure gap, Dr. Khama Rogo, a senior health specialist of the World Bank, has said. “The deficit in terms of investment that is needed for Africa just to reach the level that we are supposed to be right now is about US$30billion dollars,” Dr. Rogo told the B&FT in an interview.
Two young Nigerians, Tokunboh Ishmael, an impact investment pioneer; andLai Yahaya, an oil sector transparency advocate; have been named the 2013 Yale University World Fellows for their enterprise and industry, Yale UniversityPresident, Richard Levin, said on Thursday.
On Saturday, April 20, 2013, Safmarine received the South African Maritime Industry’s ‘Commitment to CSI’ Award for its pioneering Containers-in-the-Community programme which uses decommissioned shipping containers for community development purposes. The award – which was presented to Safmarine by event sponsor, the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) – aimed to recognise the efforts of those within the maritime sector who reached beyond their own structures to uplift, empower and skill fellow South African citizens.
United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has been selected as one of the few securities from 19 African Stock Exchanges included in the FTSE African Securities Exchanges Association (ASEA) Pan African Index.
Seven out of the 10 fastest-growing countries in the last few years are in Africa. A new report by the African Development Bank (http://www.afdb.org) explores how structured finance techniques can mobilize African domestic capital to support economic infrastructure projects and economic growth.The report, “Structured Finance – Conditions for infrastructure project bonds in African markets”, will be launched by AfDB Vice President Finance Charles Boamah next 19th April in Washington, DC, on the sidelines of the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings.
At least 30 investors have indicated interest in 10 Nigerian power plants put up for sale by the government, an official in charge of the process said.Africa’s most populous country is offering as much as 80 percent of its shares in thermal power plants located across the country, James Olotu, chief executive officer of Niger Delta Power Holding Co. of Nigeria, which owns the facilities, said today in a phone interview from Abuja, the capital. “We have organizations showing interest from all parts of the world,” he said without giving further details.
“75% of the corporates that issue in dollars from the emerging markets are investment grade. This is a defensive place for investors that are looking to get some incremental pick-up in a low yield environment for credit.”
ZimFund’s Urgent Water Supply and Sanitation Rehabilitation Project (Phase One) will increase the reliability, quality and availability of water, restore wastewater treatment capacity and reduce the incidence of cholera and other water related diseases.
In August 2012, US Secretary of the State Hilary Clinton offered a thinly veiled criticism of China’s role in Africa, calling upon African countries to guard against those that “come in, take out natural resources, pay off leaders and leave.”[1] The Chinese official news agency, Xinhua, retorted immediately that “Clinton’s implication that China has been extracting Africa’s wealth for itself is utterly wide of the truth.”[2] By Xiaofang Shen*
A plan to give investors the same level of protection when buying South African investment-grade corporate debt as they get with junk bonds is dividing the nation’s money managers. The proposals being debated include limits on further borrowing, which will enhance the safety of the debt, said Jason Lightfoot, a portfolio manager at Futuregrowth Asset Management.
« We have just under a thousand days to go before our deadline to meet the MDGs expires. In the last 12 years 600 million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty. The MDGs deserve some of the credit for this – the greatest ever achievement in poverty reduction ». Find a full statement from Andris Piebalgs, European Commissioner for Development, today in Ireland.
Emerging Capital Partners (ECP), the pan-African private equity firm, today announces that its portfolio company Finagestion, the African utility sector operating group, has been selected byREGIDESO (Régie de distribution d’eau), the DRC’s public sector water distribution company, for a three-year technical services contract. The contract is partly funded by the World Bank as part of its Water Supply Project.
China’s government has reportedly allocated 45bn yuan ($7.2bn) to fund the global expansion of state media. Africa is in a frontline of this vision. After opening an office in Nairob, CCTV is seeking to increase its African news coverage and is also commissioning local factual programmes.
Driven by strong domestic demand, economies of developing East Asia and Pacific continue to be an engine of global growth, growing at 7.5 percent in 2012 — higher than any other region in the world, says the World Bank in its latest analysis of the regional economy. As the global economy recovers, the report, released today, projects that regional growth will rise moderately to 7.8 percent in 2013 and ease to 7.6 percent in 2014.
The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria today revealed at a public event that over N6 billion was recovered for customers who have been cheated in various transactions with NIgerian banks in 2012. He said this at the annual Isaac Moghalu Foundation (IMOF) Lecture and Symposium in Abuja; adding that the recovery is to fulfill the bank’s policy of protecting customer interest.
DIAMOND Bank is planning the biggest fundraising by a Nigerian lender this year as banks seek dollars to finance oil, power and other infrastructure projects, while meeting central bank requirements for capital reserves. The Lagos-based lender planned to raise as much as $750 million (R6.7bn) in shares or bonds this year to fund more projects and raise its capital adequacy ratio, a measure of financial strength, to between 20 percent and 25 percent, chief financial officer Abdulrahman Yinusa said on Tuesday.
MTN, Africa’s largest mobile-phone operator, may spend as much as $8 billion on an acquisition, building on an increase in spending on networks last year that held back earnings. The company is seeking targets in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East and will look at those that are worth at least $4 billion, Johannesburg-based MTN said by e-mail today.
Job Title: Infrastructure Desk Manager Reports to: Chief Operating Officer Deadline: Monday, 22 April 2013 Location: Johannesburg, South Africa (only those with South African work permits need apply) Duration: 1 year, renewable
The International Capital Market Association (ICMA), the leading trade association for the international capital market, has today published the 2013 legal opinions which support the Global Master Repurchase Agreement (GMRA), the standard agreement used for international repo transactions. The 2013 opinions support the use of the GMRA in 63 jurisdictions worldwide, with the notable addition of an opinion for Russia and an expansion of counterparty coverage in a number of key jurisdictions.
Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited announced today that it expects its gold production for the quarter ended 31 March 2013 to be approximately 15% lower than in the previous quarter. Harmony Gold attributes this dip in gold production to a number of factors, including the temporary closure of the Kusasalethu gold mine in South Africa for safety reasons. Although more than half of the employees have returned to Kusasalethu, the company anticipates normal production levels to only resume in June 2013. Other factors which affected production were the ventilation challenge at Phakisa and the all around slow start-up at other operations following the festive…
Recanati Business School of Tel Aviv University, The Manufacturers Association of Israel, and the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment (VCC), a joint center of the Columbia Law School and the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York, are releasing the results of their fifth annual survey of Israeli multinational enterprises (MNEs) today. The survey is part of the Emerging Market Global Players (EMGP) project, a long-term study of the rapid global expansion of MNEs from emerging markets. The results released today focus on data for the year 2011.
The Group Chief Executive Officer of Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), Mr Thierry Tanoh, said on Monday that the bank was targeting a 50 per cent revenue growth this financial year. Making the disclosure at the bank’s “Facts Behind the Figures” forum at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in Lagos, Tanoh said that the bank’s revenue appreciated by 46 per cent last year.
The African Development Bank (http://www.afdb.org) and The Carlyle Group will host their inaugural joint initiative called ‘In the Board Room’ program in partnership with the University Of Cape Town Graduate School of Business “UCT”.The ‘in the Board Room’ initiative is envisaged for global leaders in business to business schools and campuses across Africa to share their views with Sub-Saharan students.
Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (GUARANTY), Nigeria’s largest lender by market value, will open units in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda as it seeks to expand in East Africa, Chief Executive Officer Segun Agbaje said. The bank will “acquire lenders that are not that large, but profitable in those countries in the short term,” he said in a conference call from Lagos, the commercial capital.
Pan-African lender Ecobank Transnational has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to partner with India’s second-largest bank, ICICI, to make itself a hub for Indian investment into Africa, Ecobank’s CEO said on Monday. CEO Thierry Tanoh told the Reuters Africa Investment Summit that a similar alliance with South Africa’s Nedbank had helped it gain better access to markets in southern Africa.
Standard Bank Group and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) have inked a R20 billion (US$2.2 billion) deal to fund renewable energy projects in South Africa. The finance deal was signed by ICBC’s chairman Jiang Jianqing and Standard Bank Group’s joint chief executive Ben Kruger.
New central bank regulations and difficulties in operating outside the domestic environment are not stopping Nigerian banks laying out plans for new pan-African growth. Up to now, UBA has been the most noted of Nigerian banks for its pan-African business. Between 2008 and 2011, UBA brought the number of African countries in which it operates from two to 19, according to chief executive Phillips Oduoza.
Egypte is close to an agreement with an International Monetary Fund. Planning Minister Asharf El-Arabi said that a final agreement with the IMF is to be reach within the coming two weeks, after applying for a $4.8 billion loan. Two year after the the uprising that ousted Hosni Moubarak, the african giant country is still facing to a daily protests, while the economy is growing at its slowest pace in two decades.
The African Development Bank has approved $39.44 million to be used in the Rwanda Skills, Employability and Entrepreneurship Programme (SEEP). The programme was designed in collaboration with the Government of Rwanda and other development partners and aims at supporting specific sector budget lines of the financial year 2012/13 budget.
Egyptian investment bank, EFG Hermes, is targeting wealthy African investors. 2012 was a dramatic year for EFG Hermes, the Cairo based investment bank with a market capitalisation of around $800 million. The ructions of the Arab Spring, particularly severe in its Egyptian home turf, caused the company’s income to fall sharply.
In parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, climate change is poised to hamper food production and curb rural incomes over the next decades unless farmers get the help they need through improved water management and irrigation infrastructure, wider access to technology and information, and better land management and farming practices. Although governments throughout the region face rapidly narrowing windows of opportunity to protect farmers from climate change, there are actions that can be taken now to promote a new “climate-smart” approach to agriculture that improves agricultural productivity in today’s climate, while building resilience to climate change and reducing carbon…
The African Union (AU), in collaboration with the United Nations Mine Action Services (UNMAS), the United Nations Office to the African Union (UNOAU) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will hold a mine risk awareness event to commemorate International Mine Awareness Day, on this Thursday, 4 April 2013, at 10:00 a.m., at the AU Headquarters New Conference Complex (AUCC).
The United Nations and its partners around the world will observe the 1,000 days to the end of 2015 – the target date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – during the next week to inspire further action. “The MDGs are the most successful global anti-poverty push in history,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. “The Goals have helped set global and national priorities, mobilize action, and achieve remarkable results.”
Sanlam Group Chief Executive Dr Johan van Zyl has stated that: “In 2011 Sanlam’s international business contributed around 15% of operating profit (pre-minorities). Our view is that this contribution can be doubled over the next five years as these markets are seen as key growth engines. Considerable work continues to be done to identify core markets for expansion.”
The Management Board of the African Legal Support Facility (ALSF) on 18 March 2013, in Tunis approved the legal assistance requested by the Republic of Senegal (Directorate of the Finance Ministry of Finance) in support to the private sector and the promotion of the public private partnerships in the country.
Central Africa’s regional central bank said it would reopen its branch in Bangui on Tuesday, and urged commercial lenders to do the same, offering a financial lifeline to cash-starved businesses a week after a coup. Rebels who accused the government of breaking past peace deals, stormed into the capital of Central African Republic on March 24, triggering days of looting.
Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi may have foreclosed the possibility of a second term in office after the expiration of his term next year. Sanusi was quoted in an interview with the London-based Banker Magazine as saying he had completed his assignment at the apex bank and would not be seeking a second term in office.He said critics of his tight monetary policy had forgotten how unstable the nation’s financial system was just three years ago.
The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has sanctioned the acquisition of Oceanic Life Insurance Limited, a former subsidiary of the defunct Oceanic Insurance Company Limited by a leading South African insurer, Old Mutual. The new entity is to be known as Old Mutual Nigeria Life Assurance Company Limited (OMNiLAC).
Emerging stocks capped their biggest first-quarter slump since 2008 as China’s new restrictions on wealth-management products spurred concern about the outlook for the nation’s economy and bank earnings. China Minsheng Banking Corp. (1988) plunged the most since October 2011 in Hong Kong, while Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Ltd. (1114) dropped 11 percent as profit missed analysts’ estimates. OAO Gazprom, Russia’s gas export monopoly, declined the most in six weeks.
Nigerian-based company, AiQ Capital Management Limited seeks investors to invest in their AiQ Capital Hospitality and Real Estate Fund to develop projects in Nigeria over the next five years. A minimum investment of $500 000 and a maximum of $75-million is required from local and international investors. Market studies indicate that there is high demand for mid-priced hospitality and retail facilities in Nigeria.
Tanzania’s mining sector is in a lull even as junior explorers troop into other African countries to grab opportunities. Ranked as Africa’s fourth-largest gold producer and the world’s sole producer of Tanzanite, Tanzania has attracted a few international mining majors who control current production in six mines.A decade ago, the East African nation was considered a benchmark for countries looking to successfully build a greenfield mining industry. Tanzania held its first multi-party election in 1995 and soon after started courting mining companies under very attractive terms.
On 26 December 2012, the Ivory Coast officially opened its first one-stop-shop for companies registration (Guichet Unique de Formalités des Entreprises).The creation of this one-stop-shop is an initiative of the Investment Promotion Centre (IPC), in cooperation with the Agency for the Promotion of Investments. The one-stop-shop intends to
The commerce and industry ministry is working on a mechanism that will make Indian exports to Africa as competitive as those from China. The ministry is launching a scheme that will help exporters bid more aggressively for projects. This is being seen as a route to increasing exports, which declined by 4 per cent in the April-February period of the current fiscal.
The new world order comes to Durban this week ? for the fifth BRICS Summit, and the first in Africa. Dilma Rousseff, Vladimir Putin, Manmohan Singh, Xi Jinping and Jacob Zuma represent a changing world, as gravity and power gradually shift from North to South, and West to East. Between them, they preside over nearly half of the world?s population, and nearly a quarter of its GDP.
Rougier, major player in the business of certified African tropical timber, has obtained FSC® (Forest Stewardship Council®) certification for three forest concessions located in the Mbang forest area in South East Cameroon and managed by the Rougier subsidiary SFID (Société Forestière et Industrielle de la Doumé).
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are unlikely to agree on starting a common foreign-currency pool to ward off balance-of-payment or currency crises at a meeting next week, South African Trade Minister Rob Davies said.Leaders of the so-called BRICS nations, which together have $4.4 trillion in foreign reserves, are due to discuss the creation of the reserve pool at their annual summit in the eastern South African port city of Durban from March 26-27.
The National Bank of Mauritania (BNM) will expand the Islamic financial system to all its branches across the country.BNM chief executive Mohamed Ould Noueiguedh has justified this approach by pointing out that Islamic banks have largely been unaffected by the financial crisis, due to the « nature of their operations, away from all the bidding and sale of credit with interest ». »
What: The 9th Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development (CAADP) Partnership Platform (PP) Meeting is an annual continental forum which brings together stakeholders in African agriculture. Date: The 9th CAADP PP takes place on March 25 – 26, 2013 Who: Organised by the African Union Commission and the NEPAD Agency, the Partnership Platform expects the attendance of:
