Emerging Markets Property Group (EMPG) is investing $7 million to strengthen the staff within its Moroccan real estate advertising arm Mubawab, local media reported. With about 150 employees in Morocco, Mubawab plans to recruit 100 new workers by the end of 2020 in its Maghreb subsidiaries (Algeria and Tunisia) as well as in Morocco. The real estate advertising portal, which boasts a...

In Nigeria, the pan-African bank Ecobank has announced a plan to inject $193 million (70 billion naira) in agricultural businesses over the next two years. The project targets companies that have strong impact in the different value chains of the sector. This strategy aligns with the Agribusiness and Food Summit the bank is organizing in the country next month, in partnership with Vanguard...

Internet and social media shutdowns last year cost the global economy a total of $8.05 billion, and sub-Saharan Africa alone suffered a loss of $2.16 billion. According to Top10VPN.com, one of the leading VPN review websites, the region recorded 7,800 hours of shutdowns with Chad being the most unfortunate country in terms of hours (4,728 hours) and Sudan the most economically-impacted...

From an initial 3.1%, the World Bank finally sees economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa at 2.9% for the current year. In the related document published last week, the Bank says weak external demand coupled with increased global policy uncertainty, decline in commodity prices and internal fragilities in several countries in the region facilitated the global slowdown. Supported by improved...

The share of renewables in the global energy mix should double, from the current 26% to 57%, by 2030 to meet climate goals, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) found in its recent “10 years: Progress to Action” report. This means the capacity of renewable energy plants should increase from the current 2.4 TW to 7.7 TW. Achieving this objective will require doubling investments...

Administrative Capital For Urban Development (ACUD), the company which owns and develops the new administrative capital project in Egypt, has selected mobile operator Orange to build a data center and a cloud computing platform in the smart city. The $135 million agreement was signed on January 12 between ACUD MD, Mohamed Abdel Latif, and Hisham Mahran who manages the business division at...

Ghanaian private airline Africa World Airlines (AWA) and Air Burkina announced on Jan 10 they have entered into a unilateral interline partnership to better connect passengers via the AWA hub in Accra.   Under this partnership, Air Burkina’s passengers can now join, with a single ticket, AWA networks between Accra and Lagos, Abuja and Abidjan, as well as domestic services in...

South Africa's telecom operator, MTN Group, which also has the largest presence in Africa, collected R14 billion ($986 million) in 2019 with the sale of non-core assets. “Realizing proceeds from simplifying the group remains a major strategic objective and we expect further progress in this program in 2020,” CEO Rob Shuter (pictured) said. MTN plans to mobilize up to R15 billion over the...

The Ivorian government has announced the creation of the Small and Medium Enterprises Guarantee Fund to facilitate access to bank financing for SMEs. This was highlighted in the communiqué of the Council of Ministers held on Wednesday, January 8, 2020. According to the Ivorian authorities, the creation of this fund is intended to guarantee credits granted by banking establishments to national...

British global citizenship and residence advisory firm Henley & Partners has just published the 2020 ranking of the world’s most powerful passports. Although Africa is still lagging compared to the rest of the world, some countries on the continent are making progress. Seychelles’ passport ranked 29th worldwide and 1st in Africa, gives visa-free entry to 151 destinations. The top 5 on the...