Development spending efforts should target improved food safety for African consumers, who need greater information and awareness to be able to demand higher standards, finds the Global Food Safety Partnership. More than half of donor-funded food safety initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa are focused on overseas markets, with less than half on domestic consumers, a new report from the Global Food...

The Kingdom of Eswatini is on track for progress following encouraging country performance in execution of ongoing projects, Executive Directors of the African Development Bank concluded following a consultative mission to the southern African nation. The delegation of nine directors met with Prime Minister Ambrose M. Dlamini (photo) and several members of his cabinet including Minister of...

On February 4, 2019, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca (photo), president of the Republic of Malta, during her official visit in Tunisia in the framework of the joint Tunisia-Malta committee expressed her will to see a boost in the cooperation between the two countries, in the IT sector notably. According to Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, Malta currently experienced dynamism in various IT segments like the...

The International Finance Corporation (IFC)’s annual investments in Africa represented more than one-quarter of its long-term investments in the world during the 2017-2018 fiscal year. This was indicated, this week, by Linda Munyengeterwa, IFC’s regional director for infrastructures and natural resources in Africa and the Middle-East. During an interview with La Tribune Afrique, the...

Afreximbank announced the launch of its fully-owned Mauritius-based $100 million Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA). It is aimed at supporting African SMEs to make them well-functioning for export. It will offer seed funding to eligible companies to help them attract more funds and investors. The funds’ managing director Philip Kamau, thinks that this is the beginning of a...

About hundred Egyptian deputies submitted a constitutional amendment bill, on February 3, 2019, to allow Abdel Fattah al-Sissi (photo) to run for two more terms after his current mandate that should normally end in 2022. The bill plans for an amendment of article 140 of the constitution to extend the presidential term from four to six years. A transitional provision will also bring the number of...

The African private equity environment could be losing one large American investor, credible sources reveal. According to the Wall Street Journal that cited a spokesperson, since about a year now, Blackstone embarked on a process to sell Black Rhino Group, an infrastructures investment firm. The purchasers are said to be the management team at the head of this New York-based investment firm since...

VEON Ltd, formerly known as VimpelCom Ltd, expressed its interest in a full acquisition of Global Telecom Holding (GTH) it owned at 55.6%. According to Reuters, VEON Ltd is offering EGP5.30 ($0.3005) per share for 42.3% of the firm’s equity. This amounts to about $600 million but, for the time being, the operation has not been submitted to Egypt’s financial authority. GTH is currently...

Botswana Building Society which announced, April 2018, that it would apply for a banking licence has not yet initiated the procedures in that regard. The information was disclosed by Botswana’s minister of finance during his address to the parliament in the framework of the 2019 draft bill. “BBS is submitting a license to the central bank to operate as a full commercial bank which will be...

Ethiopia has decided to create a new telecom regulator to “restructure the telecommunications market and build competition”. The decision, which has been submitted for the approval of the house of representatives, was taken during the fourteenth extraordinary meeting of the ministerial council of February 4, 2019. The government, which wants the regulator to be independent, transparent and...