Mercer cabinet recently unveiled its 2019 ranking of cities with the highest quality of living. As was the case in the past three years, Port Louis, Mauritius’ capital, is the 83rd globally and the best in Africa. This capital is directly followed by Durban, South Africa, which is the 88th globally. Next comes Cape Town and Johannesburg both in South Africa) that are respectively the...

United Bank for Africa (UBA) ended 2018 with a drop in its shareholders’ equity. Its report revealed that the period under review ended with NGN483.4 billion equity, a 5.1% decrease compared with the NGN509.5 billion recorded during the 2017 fiscal year.   According to the group, this is due to the new financial standard IFRS9. The group’s figures indicate that this negative performance...

Orange Guinea is increasing the pressure on its local competitors MTN and Cellcom. On March 14, 2019, the operator acquired a 4G licence thus becoming the pioneer of this technology in the country. By acquiring its 4G licence at $90 million, Orange Guinea also renewed its 2G and 3G licences now valid for ten more years. In the license agreements, the operator is required to cover every...

Zimbabwe will sell five of its public firms to raise $350 million, Mthuli Ncube (photo), the finance minister, announced in a release published this week. Zimpost, POSB, NetOne, Telecel Zimbabwe and TelOne Zimbabwe are the firms to be liquidated. These sales should help the country raise enough funds to reduce its budget deficit from 12% to 5% of GDP. In the release, the official...

Nissan Egypt will increase its yearly production capacity by 6,000 new cars to reach 28,000 units, Peyman Kargar, president of Nissan Africa, announced in an interview with Bloomberg. The firm expects to raise its market share in the Arab country from 15% to 20% by 2022 thanks to this investment. Despite its population estimated at more than 100 million residents, Egypt’s auto sector is still...

The cumulated net banking product of banks listed on Tunis stock exchange reached TND4.23 billion ($1.43 billion) at the end of the 2018 fiscal year. This represents a 15.6% rise on a year to year basis, according to data compiled by Ecofin Agency. The net banking products of eleven out of the twelve banks rose except for Arab Tunisian Bank whose net banking products decreased by 9.1%....

To counter competition, Zambia Telecommunications Company Networks (Zamtel) has decided to deploy 700 telecom towers this year. This represents a more than 100% rise compared with the 300 towers announced by Brian Mushimba, transport and communications minister, in 2018. There is no hint about the financial investments that will be required for such infrastructures but Sydney Mupeta (photo),...

During the visit of Emmanuel Macron, the French president, in East Africa on March 11-14, 2019, Ethiopia and Kenya signed space cooperation agreements with France. Thanks to these cooperation agreements, both countries can boost their competencies in the various space sectors such as telecommunications, meteorology, cartography, climate change, agriculture and defence. The agreement...

South African banking group Standard Bank announces the closure of 91 agencies and the suppression of about 1,200 jobs in South Africa starting from June 2019.   According to the bank, this is due to clients’ preference for digital banking products and services. “This has not been an easy decision to make. We admit that it is a stressful period for everybody,” Standard Bank indicated...

The African Development Bank and the governments of Mozambique and Portugal have signed a Mozambique-specific Memorandum of Understanding for the implementation of the Lusophone Compact. The Lusophone Compact is a financing platform, involving the Bank, Portugal, Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe, which provides risk mitigation, investment...