The UNECA announces the launch of an African fund dedicated to women entrepreneurs. This fund plans to raise up to $500 million in the ten coming years for investments in firms managed by African women.  For the time being, there is no information on the firms that will benefit from the financing or the volume of funds they will receive. Apart from facilitating women’s access to...

Egypt’s borrowing requirements are estimated to be EGP820.7 billion ($48 billion) for the 2019-2020 fiscal year, according to the state budget published on April 22, 2019. Compared with the 2018-2019 requirement, this represents a 26% rise. Domestic borrowings should grow by 45% during the said fiscal year to reach EGP725.1 billion while external loans should drop by 36% to EGP95.6...

In 2018, Algeria’s growth was 1.5% against 1.14% in 2017, according to figures published by the office for national statistics (ONS). This growth rate is below the IMF’s forecast which was 2.5% for the period under review. According to the office, the growth was spurred by the agriculture, construction, public works, hydraulics, oil and industry, transport and communication sectors. ...

EFG Hermes Finance,  BG Capital and Talaat Moustafa Group (TMG) will launch an $8.6 million joint-venture to offer mortgage financing.  This fund could increase to $14.5 million in the coming years. This fund will leverage the about four decades of experience Egyptian group Talaat Moustafa Group (TMG) has in real estate development in Egypt. According to Karim Awad, managing...

The 5G technology will be available in Egypt for the AFCON 2019 to be hosted in the country from June 21 to July 19, 2019, Amr Talaat (photo), the country’s minister for IT and communications announces. It will only be deployed in experimental mode thanks to the technical support of Huawei technologies at Cairo stadium. This test is the result of a meeting between the Egyptian prime minister...

In a release published on Sunday 21, April 2019, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia announced that they would provide $3 billion to Sudan. This financial support is aimed at helping the east African country find solutions to the economic crisis it is going through. It consists of a $500 million deposit in the Central Bank of Sudan to alleviate pressures on the Sudanese Pound....

In Mali, prime minister Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga (photo) submitted both his and the government’s resignation on April 18, 2019, amid tense socio-political environment. This environment was created by the demonstrations organized by the civil society and the opposition following the murder of more than 160 Fula villagers in March 2019. The demonstrators denounced the worsening security...

Africa’s net gain under a no-deal Brexit should be $3.24 billion, a recent report published by the UNCTAD indicates. Despite this apparently positive impact of such a deal, there are huge discrepancies. Only five countries really benefit from the no-deal Brexit. They are namely South Africa ($3.04 billion), Mauritius ($220 million), Botswana ($190 million), Seychelles ($105 million) and...

Orange Cyberdefense, the French group Orange’s branch dedicated to network security, officially opens its first African subsidiary in Morocco. The Casablanca-based subsidiary was launched on April 16, 2019. It was announced during the first meeting of IT users in Morocco on October 24-26, 2018 in Marrakech.   It will let users securely initiate their digital transformation, said Yves...

Kenya could be the major gainer in the acquisition of National Bank of Kenya (NBK) by Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), Ecofin Agency gathered from available information. Indeed, the government is a major stakeholder in the two financial institutions via public institutions. Kenya Commercial Bank insisted that prior to the operation, National Bank of Kenya’s preference shares should be converted...