This week, the Russian minister of foreign affairs Sergueï Lavrov (photo) embarked on a tour to visit many Maghreb countries. Planned to end on January 26, 2019, the tour that started on January 23 should be focused on “bilateral relations and the key points of the regional and international environment”, the spokeswoman for the foreign ministry Maria Zakharova indicated. Algeria, Morocco...

The quality of international banking services toward African countries has never been impeccable but, for some months now, it seems that the glitches are growing. Those glitches are not always the fault of receiving African banks because the chain has many intermediaries. From transfer that takes weeks to reach destinations to transfer fees that are sometimes 10X higher depending on the banks,...

On January 20, 2019, during a meeting of AmCham Egypt, Egypt’s minister of communication and information technology Amr Talaat (photo), revealed that the government was preparing a national Artificial Intelligence strategy that would focus on education, research and exports.   For the education and research window of that strategy, an Artificial Intelligence academy is to be created in...

American capital investment Berkshire Partners has bought part of London group Permira Holdings’ shares in Teraco Data Environments, the largest data centre in Africa, Bloomberg reported on January 24, 2019. With this acquisition whose amount has not been disclosed, Berkshire Partners becomes the main shareholder of the South African firm that operates data centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town...

MTN Zambia and Kirusa have launched “ReachMe”, a new roaming service for clients travelling out of the country. According to the two firms’ statement reported by NexTV News Africa, with the new services, clients will benefit from “a drastic reduction in the cost of making and receiving calls whilst outside Zambia" and will have "the ability to use their MTN Zambia number anywhere in the...

About $20 million will be required to implement the peace deal in South Sudan, the country’s deputy minister of foreign affairs Deng Dau Deng announced this week. This announcement is made after the deputy minister of finance Goc Mokwatch declared that the parliament has approved a budget of the same volume for the implementation of the peace deal.  For the time being, only $1.6...

In Ethiopia, the government will soon migrate toward the national backbone to take advantage of the enhanced internet capabilities necessary for its E-government services. The innovation and technology minister Getahun Mekuria (photo) announced this on January 22, 2019, during a workshop organized in Addis Ababa on investments made by the country to improve its national telecom infrastructure....

South Africa’s subsidies for higher education could negatively affect its economy, World Bank indicated this week. According to the Bretton Woods institution, the new plan to increase investments in education to 2.5% of GDP by 2022 is not viable. Therefore, the $12 billion investments planned in the sector could put “unnecessary” pressures on the economy. In addition, the high cost of...

The American fluid system manufacturer TI Automotive plans to build a second plant in Morocco for an investment of €16 million, the Moroccan media Le Matin reported. The group has chosen to build the plant in the industrial platform of Tanger Med and the site should produce 4.5 million meters of tubes yearly to be supplied to European automobile constructors. TI Automotive that built...

Société tunisienne de Banque (STB) has not been able to meet its target to raise TND50 million (about $17 million) in the bond market. STB Finance, the state-owned bank’s subsidiary operating as a stock market intermediary, announced in a statement published on January 23, 2019, that subscriptions to the TND50 million bond operation, launched without resorting to an IPO, was...