Room2Run, the African Development Bank and partners’ innovative US $1 billion synthetic securitization of a portfolio of seasoned African Development Bank private sector loans, will serve as a model for other lenders, help reduce costs, and shorten execution time, finance experts told participants at a workshop on Saturday. The landmark securitization instrument, a first for any...

Last October 10, Bilel Sahnoun, CEO of Tunis Stock exchange, announced that Three to five companies should be added to the list by 2019.   "Between three and five other companies will be listed in textile and real estate next year, which will raise the number of listed companies to about 85-86", the CEO said in an interview with Reuters. M. Sahnoun, noting that the absence of large...

New technology and blended finance will help to bridge the “last mile” of the infrastructure gap by getting goods and services to end users, and connecting underserved populations to business value chains, said the African Development Bank during a session at the Global Infrastructure Forum 2018 on Saturday. This year’s forum themed “Unlocking Inclusive, Resilient, and Sustainable...

Last week, the telecommunications operators MTN, Airtel, Glo, 9Mobile and Ntel inaugurated the financial inclusion committee created in Nigeria to improve financial inclusion in the country. This executive body is, in fact, an answer to low adoption of mobile money in the country for five years now. Indeed, the market share of this service is below 10% and, during their meeting on September 4,...

Last weekend, in Kisumu, Kenya, Jerome Ochieng (photo), Principal Secretary for ICT and Innovation, launched the project initiated to connect Kenyan districts to the national optical fiber network. For this project, the government invested Ksh10 billion ($99,124,012) and, it plans to connect public administration, hospitals and schools etc … to the internet. According to Jerome Ochieng, Kenya...

Algeria’s posts and electronic communications regulatory body (Autorité de régulation de la poste et des communications électroniques-ARPCE) and Sudan telecommunications regulatory agency (Autorité de régulation de la poste et des télécommunications -ARPT) signed a partnership agreement during the sixteenth annual session of Arab Regulators Network held on October 1-4, 2018 in...

South Africa has already successfully mobilized 35% of the $100 billion it was planning to raise in the five coming years, Trudi Makhaya (photo), economic advisor at the South African Presidency indicated during an interview with Reuters. According to the official's statements reported by the American media, for the time being, the $35 billion are just pledges. Saudi Arabia and the...

Egypt plans to invest LE508 million (about $28.3 million) for implementation of the phase of a cultural services development plan during the 2018/2019 fiscal year, representing a 14% increase compared to the volume set for the previous fiscal year (2017/2018).   Hala el Saeed, Egypt’s minister of planning, indicated in a release that this development plan that will be implemented...

Sonangol, the Angolan public oil company, is once again on the international debt market after two years of absence, which coincided with a period of lowest oil prices. This will be a test operation for the company which enters the market in a context marked by an increase of the oil barrel price and a tougher macroeconomic situation in Angola. In April 2018, Moody's decreased the country’s...

Africa Finance Corporation reached an agreement with Exim Bank China, for a $300 million loan. $200 million of that amount will be granted as a closed loan and $100 million as Precautionary Credit Line (PCL).   The terms of the transaction have not been revealed but, according to Samala Zubairu (photo), president of AFC, the funds raised will help fund industrialization...