The World Bank approved $150 million to improve sanitation and access to clean water in Côte d'Ivoire, the bank announced last week.The new support is granted as part of the second phase of the Water Supply and Sanitation Project in urban areas (PREMU-Phase II) which aims to provide drinking water to citizens, build new hygiene facilities and upgrade the existing ones in schools across the...

Egyptian minister of information and communications technology, Amr Talaat, pledges for ICT cooperation between his country and Germany, particularly in the areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI), capacity building and research and development (R & D). This was on June 25 in Berlin, during the 22nd Arab-German Business Forum.With Angela Ittel, Vice-President of Strategic Development at the...

Orange Côte d’Ivoire plans to invest XOF180 billion, the equivalent of about $312 million, to upgrade its network and set new services, this year and the next.According to MD Mamadou Bamba, a priority is to increase the Internet speed, through “the extension of 4G coverage that has become essential.” The company also plans banking and energy services and hoped to “get the banking...

For the 6th year in a row, China remained the biggest lender of Mozambique, data issued June 25 by the government showed.The aggregate loan to the country increased by $400 million to $2.2 billion at the end of 2018, according to an official document. Debt increased with loans granted for infrastructure projects in the country. These include the construction of the Maputo-Catembe...

The Angolan government plans to privatize more than 190 public companies, 32 being national, via the securities market. Information was reported June 26 by Patrício Vilares (photo), the under coordinator of the privatization technical committee at the Finance Ministry.“The privatization program intends to improve the productive sector and offer competitive conditions to companies that weigh...

The operation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) could increase the gross domestic product of member countries by 1% to 3%, according to the latest report of the UN Conference on Trade and Development published June 26.“If the agreement is fully implemented, the gross domestic product of most African countries could increase by 1% to 3% once all tariffs are eliminated […] The...

The African development Bank -AfDB- announced June 27, 2019, it has approved a credit line worth about TND327 million (€100 million) to Tunisia’s BH Bank. The new financing comes as a boost to the bank in the implementation of its strategy to support private companies operating the country. Targeted sectors include health, renewable energies, social housing and industry. “This financial...

South-African telecom company Vodacom, African arm of Vodafone, announce it is selling operations in Angola, Zambia, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria and Ghana. In the first country, the company plans to divest its Business Africa unit to Internet Technologies Angola (ITA). The selling cost is not disclosed but the agreement is subject to approval from market regulatory authorities. In Zambia, Côte...

BMCE Bank of Africa announced June 26 it has received approval from the Moroccan capital market authority AMMC to increase its capital by MAD1.89 billion ($199 million). The green light was given a week after British development finance agency CDC Group announced it has acquired a near 5% stake in the bank for $200 million. BMCE will first mobilize a first instalment, including share...

As part of its national e-government project, which aims to improve the efficiency of public services through ICT, Senegal's State IT Agency (ADIE) will increase the number of digitized administrative procedures to 700 by 2025. This was announced by MD Sheikh Bakhoum (photo), during a workshop organized June 26 in Dakar.The measure is to make public services more accessible to citizens. To date,...