During the 2017-2018 cocoa season, the offer will be superior to the demand. According to recent figures from the international cocoa organization, the surplus of the ongoing season should stand at 105,000 tons against 300,000 tons during the 2016-17 campaign. Though this is the second consecutive year that the offer is higher than the demand, the organization indicated that compared with the...

Last February 26, the West African Development Bank (BOAD) signed a financing agreement worth CFA5 billion ($9.3 million) with Senegal’s national bank for economic development (BNDE).  The fund will be used in part to refinance the 2017-18 peanut marketing campaign which began in December 2017. By using the fund the in agricultural and in the peanut sector, in particular, the Senegalese...

Benin's Minister of Planning and Development, Abdoulaye Bio Tchané (photo), announced that about 1.25 million hectares of land will be restored by 2030. This represents half of the degraded land during the 2000-2010 reference period. He revealed this on Feb. 27 during the national workshop on land and agroforestry landscapes management. The government also plans to limit to 5% the loss of...

In Côte d’Ivoire, about 125,000 tons of cocoa have been smuggled into neighboring countries since the 2017-18 campaign started in October. This was revealed by Bloomberg which quoted two sources close to the Coffee and Cocoa Council (CCC) who requested anonymity. In detail, nearly 100,000 tons of the commodity were smuggled across the eastern border with Ghana while another 25,000...

Last week, Christian Magnagna, the Gabonese mine minister received in audience Koffie Ben Nassar, senior economist at the Africa department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during his visit in Libreville in the framework of an assessment of reforms and measures initiated by the government. During the audience, the economist reminded the objectives of IMF’s mission in Gabon. They also...

Mali’s energy company (EDM) ,the national power supplier, asked industrial consumers to shut down all electrical appliances from 6 pm to 2 am during the next heatwave (from March 1 to July 31, 2018).  This is due to the drought that lowered water level in both Manantaly (200 MW) and Sélingué (46.2 MW) dams. Indeed, for the first time in 38 years, Sélingué dam was not full. At...

On February 26, Ivanhoe Mines announced that the “remarkable” Kamoa-Kakula deposit contains a 50% more copper than previously estimated increase in indicated mineral resources, at a 3% cut-off grade. This follows an updated estimate conducted under the supervision of Amec Foster Wheeler, the independent consultant. According to the current estimations, “Kakula now contains Indicated...

The Gabonese Minister of public works, Jean Pierre Oyiba, concluded an agreement with Société d'exploitation du Transgabonais (SETRAG) to mobilize CFA200 billion to renovate the national railway. This agreement which is in line with the Strategic Plan Gabon Emergent (PSGE), was signed by Mr. Oyiba, Estelle Ondo, the transport minister and Patrick Claes, SETRAG’s managing...

In Côte d’Ivoire, cocoa exporters are struggling to cope with the impact of decline in cocoa output. Indeed, less than a month before the end of the 2017-18 cocoa main season, the volume of cocoa they shipped was not sufficient to fulfill their contracts.   “We received 140, 000 tons (ed: of cocoa) in February against 175,000 tons last year and given the current conditions, we are...

The West African Regional Stock Exchange (Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, BRVM) is organizing in 2018 a global roadshow which will include three major nancial cities on three continents: Johannesburg, London and New York. The BRVM will launch its BRVM Investment Days 2018 roadshow from Africa’s nancial centre, Johannesburg on March 14th then it will move...