US stock exchanges are one of the big winners of this pandemic period. Key indices in these financial markets again posted record gains in the third quarter of 2020. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 8.5% and 7.6% respectively over the period. Stronger gains were recorded in the first two months of the third quarter, resulting in the best two-quarter performance since 2009...

The African Development Bank was selected in a poll of bond market players as the best issuer in 2020 of a COVID-19 bond for its $3 billion dollar-denominated Fight COVID-19 social bond issued on March 27, 2020. The winners of the GobalCapital Bond Awards 2020 were announced on 30 September at a ceremony held virtually for the first time in 12 years. GlobalCapital is a leading source of...

Nigeria’s minister of the digital economy, Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, said the digital economy sector is expected to weigh more than 45% in the country’s GDP by the end of this year. This was during a virtual forum on Internet governance held on September 23-24. The restriction measures initiated due to the pandemic have boosted telecom services consumption in the corporate world, especially...

The group of international investors holding 70% of Zambia’s three Eurobonds turned down today September 30 the country’s request to obtain a 6-month moratorium on the payment of nearly $118 million. “Members are unable to provide a positive response to the consent solicitation request at this time given the absence of clarity on several issues,” they said. Zambia is the first...

The United States has requested Zimbabwe's assistance in countering the Islamist insurgency in Mozambique. According to local media, the assistance was requested during a phone call between U.S. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Tibor Nagy (pictured) and Zimbabwe’s Foreign Minister Sibusiso Moyo last week. The U.S. wants to put an end to the Islamist threat in the North of Mozambique...

Senegal will soon have a new face. President Macky Sall announced on September 29 plans to revive the economy through major investments in key sectors. This was during a presidential council on the Adjusted and Accelerated Priority Action Plan (PAP2A) for the recovery of the economy. “We will first focus on accelerating food sovereignty by strengthening our autonomy on commodities; we are...

The South African technology company Business Connection (BCX) has partnered with Epsilon, a global connectivity and communications service provider, to provide its African customers with high-performance data center interconnection (DCI) services. BCX will use Epsilon's Infiny platform to seamlessly connect its customers in Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, and Tanzania...

Ghana signed, yesterday September 29, an agreement with China’s Exim Bank for the construction of 2,000 new telecom sites in rural areas. The construction contract is awarded to Huawei Technologies. Delivery is scheduled for September 2021. While mobile communication has bloomed in Ghana in recent years, rural areas are still lagging. And the government sees in this new program an opportunity...

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) join forces to make the global tourism sector more sustainable through the promotion of green technologies. In that regard, EBRD established the Green Technology Selector (GTS), which is an online shopping-style platform that lists best-in-class technologies from manufacturers around the world....

In Nigeria, 80% of government subsidies to the electricity sector benefit the rich at the expense of the poor, who capture only 2%. According to the World Bank, since 2017, the federal government has borrowed 1.3 trillion naira ($3.38 billion) from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to make up the shortfall created by a power tariff lower than the cost of generating electricity. The federal...