Islamic Development Bank just signed with Burkina Faso a loan agreement for $37 million (around 18.5 billion CFA francs). The facility will be injected in the power networks extension and reinforcement project of Burkina Faso. The project aims to improve the livelihood of people of Ouagadougou, Bobo Dioulasso and Koudougou by expanding and reinforcing power distribution and transport...

Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed officialed launched the Financial Port of Tunis project which is financed by Bahraini investment bank Gulf Financial House. “Tunisia wishes, through this project, to join the global investment chessboard,” said the Head of State cited by Web Manager Center. Two days from the Tunisie 2020 conference, which aims to re-attract FDI in Tunisia, Chahed said...

The Democratic Republic of Congo produced in the third quarter of 2016, 268,393 tons of copper, thus 0.6% more than in Q3 2015. The news was announced by the Central Bank which highlighted that despite the increase, copper output over the past three quarters has slumped 10% compared to 2015, to 734,643 tons. According to the financial institution, the 10% slump was caused by global copper...

Averroès Finance III which is managed by Bpifrance and co-sponsored by Proparco, French Development Agency’s arm for private sector, announced an interim closing of €75 million. The closing was possible with the arrival of Fransabank and Audi Bank, who have invested respectively 10 and 5 million euros in the Africa-focused fund. The sum mobilized will be injected in funds that invest...

Car manufacturer Volkswagen announced on November 27 it has officially entered into a joint-venture with SOVAC, its concessionaire in Algeria, to start in the second quarter of 2017 the construction of an assembly unit. “This decision is a logic step forward in our path to increase our car sales in Algeria. Volkswagen has decided to acquire the stake in SOVAC Production due to the long and...

Chief executive of Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), Josh Chifamba, said his institution could lose twice more money this year than in 2015, thus from $112 to $224 million. This is mainly to more power being imported and that power being sold at a price lower than that it was acquired for from producers. In 2016, ZESA imported $160 million of power against $28...

European Investment Bank (EIB) signed agreement to grant Senega €75 million (about 49.2 billion CFA). The facility will be used to implement the Senegal Electricity Modernisation project which is part of the Plan Senegal Emergent program. The funding according to Diéderick Zambon, Chief of EIB for Africa, will be used for emergency investments in the power sector in the Dakar and...

Rating agency Moody’s announced in a statement released on November 22 that it has scaled down Tunisia’s sovereign rating (Ba3) from stable to negative, as it delayed the sanitization of its public finances. Moody’s said the delay caused budget deficit to increase and debt/GDP ratio to rise, going further away from the mean or average of countries falling in its category. Tunisia’s...

For the 2016-17 agricultural season, Mali has produced 8.96 million Mt of cereals. This is 11% more than during the previous season. The record output is mainly led by rice production (2.81Mt), maize’s (1.9Mt), millet (1.9Mt) and sorghum (1.63Mt). The season helped satisfy the country’s demand for cereals and even get a surplus of 3.77Mt. “A yield satisfying local consumption with a...

According to a study conducted by Entrepreneurial Solutions Partners (ESPartners) which is led by Eric Kacou, financing needs of SMEs in Cote d’Ivoire are estimated at 3,574 billion CFA francs ($5.7 billion). However, banks and finance institutions provide those structures only 40% of these needs, thus 1,464 billion CFA francs. The results of the study, for which 4,212 firms in Cote d’Ivoire...