On an official visit to Germany, the President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina commended the Presidents and Heads of State of the Compact with Africa countries for their strong commitment to reforms, adding the African Development Bank has worked very closely with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on the policy matrices and advancing them with positive results...

Nigeria will benefit from the £1.2 billion the British government plans to invest in many African countries to create growth. On October 29, 2018, Alessandra Lustrati, Senior Private Sector Development Adviser & Head of Digital Inclusion at Department of Foreign &International Development (DFID), declared that part of the fund will be used in the IT sector via the provision of...

On October 31, 2018, in Kigali, Paul Kagame, president of the Republic of Rwanda and Jack Ma, executive president of Alibaba group, launched the first African hub of the Chinese company’s Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP).  This platform will let Rwandan SMEs offer their products and services to millions of potential clients on the world market. The investment of Alibaba Group...

Continental Re, the reinsurance group listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, declared a net profit of NGN2.11 billion ($5.8 million) for the first nine months of 2018. This performance represents a drop of 32% on a year on year basis. Yet, the reinsurer collected NGN26 billion premiums from its clients, a turnover 27% higher on a year to year basis. Even net premiums (premiums minus commissions)...

Orascom Investment Holding (ex Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Holding), a conglomerate held by the Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, announced, on October 31, 2018, its intention to acquire 30% of the capital of local financial services group Sarwa Capital in November. In that regard, the conglomerate which mainly operates in the mobile telephony, exploitation of cable network,...

Egypt and Germany signed a €129 million economic cooperation agreement during the 4-day visit of Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sissi (photo) in Berlin in the framework of the meeting of the committee for Egypt-German cooperation. The spokeswoman of the Egyptian presidency indicated that the two countries signed bilateral agreements including a statement of intent for a joint...

In 2017, the United States of America was the leading Foreign Direct Investor in Africa, according to the 2018 edition of  "Attractiveness Program Africa" published on October 29, 2018, by the audit firm Ernst & Young. Companies from the world's largest economy launched 130 projects in Africa in 2017 (12% of the overall projects recorded in the continent during the period under review),...

On October 29, 2018, Gabon’s telecommunications regulator sent a formal notice to Gabon Telecom and Airtel Gabon for non-compliance with the quality regulations. In the notice, they were required to improve the quality of their services as soon as possible. For Lin Mombo (photo), president of the regulatory agency, if the two operators do not improve their service quality, despite the formal...

The public telecom company Ethio Telecom signed a servicing agreement with the Ethiopian Electrical Utilities (EEU) to solve the quality problems caused by untimely disruptions of its network. Thanks to this agreement, EEU will provide Ethio Telecom, a guaranteed volume of energy the telecom company needs to power part of its sites and guarantee ongoing operation of its network. The other...

MTN Ghana, which realized the most important IPO in the history of Ghana’s financial market, ended the first nine months of 2018 with a negative working capital requirement. In the financial reports published by the company during the period under review, the company presented a statement from which it appears that its current assets are estimated at GHC4 billion ($825 million), of which about...