Managers of the Egyptian state-owned Bank Misr renewed their commitment to the expansion of the group in many regions around the world, Sub Saharan Africa included. In the framework of this expansion, a representative office could be opened in Kenya this year. The project is not new since it has been mentioned in many of the bank’s yearly reports since 2016; the aim being to penetrate new...

In 2018, tourist arrivals grew by 6% in the world to reach 1.4 billion, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) announced in a release published on January 21, 2019.   According to the release, this growth, which was the second since 2010, was spurred by tourist arrivals in the Middle-East and in Africa that respectively grew by 10% and 7%, way higher than the world average. In Africa, the...

At just weeks to the presidential elections, Nigeria is likely to sustain massive attacks in many states, the information minister Lai Mohammed (photo) indicated this week. According to the official, at least ten out of the 36 states could be targeted by violent attacks aimed at disrupting the already tense electoral process. Without naming a specific party, the opposition was accused of...

Rwanda and Morocco have decided to share their expertise to develop their respective justice sector with technology. For this purpose, on January 21, 2019, in Kigali, the two countries represented by their respective ministers of justice (Mohamed Aujjar for Morocco and Johnston Busingye for Rwanda) signed a cooperation agreement for the their courts’ digitization. According to Johnston...

Uganda’s parliament, via an ICT commission, has ordered the ministry of ICT to assess the impact of the social network tax introduced by the government in July 2018. This assessment was ordered by the parliament after the ICT minister Frank Tumwebaze acknowledged the negative impacts this tax had on the local telecom sector. Yet, when it was introduced, the finance minister indicated that it...

Mozambique has just created an incumbent telecommunications firm baptized Mozambique Telecom. This telecom firm is the result of the merger of state-owned firms Telecomunicações de Moçambique (TdM) and Moçambique Celular (MCel), decided during the ministerial council of July 26, 2016, following financial problems experienced by those two companies. Those problems were revealed in 2015 by the...

Despite the historic low of China’s GDP growth in 2018, the new economic data published by the National Bureau of Statistics of China on January 21, 2019, has some calming influence on the African partners of this country. According to data Ecofin Agency had access to, the country’s economy grew by 6.5% at the end of 2018, representing the lowest growth in the last 28 years. However, despite...

Standard Chartered Bank, a financial group present in 17 African countries and whose leading shareholder is the Singaporean sovereign fund (with 15.6% shares), started 2019 with adjustments in its African operations. Before the end of H1, 2019, it should have to finalize the sale of its private equity operations in the region and in other parts of the world, after a $1 billion agreement...

Orascom Investment Holdings, the telecommunications group controlled by the Sawaris (51.1% of the shares), has finalised the obtention of a $170 million loan from AfreximBank. The fund will help it expand to Rwanda, Togo, Nigeria, Eritrea as well as in Sao Tome and Principe. In these countries, Orascom Investment Holdings will seek business and investment opportunities. AfreximBank...

South Africa announces that it is “ currently not in a position “ to meet the $1.2 billion loan request sent by its neighbour Zimbabwe. “South Africa doesn’t have the money to provide that kind of assistance”, a spokesperson of the South African ministry of finance said, according to a statement reported by Reuters. Zimbabwe has turned the page of the year under Mugabe’s...