The Agricultural sector in West coast in Cape Town (South Africa) has recorded a financial loss of about R14 billion ($1 billion), due to the drought which persists for three years now. The information relayed by Businesslive, was announced by Carl Opperman, Agri Western Cape‘s managing director, an organization dedicated to agricultural development in the region. According to the...

On February 5, 2018, Ghana National Association of Small Scale Miners (GNASSM) disclosed that the industry has lost $551 million since the government put a ban on their operations. Speaking at a media roundtable on the place and role of artisanal mining in the country’s economy, Godwin Amarh, Secretary General of GNASSM, called on the government to immediately lift the ban to...

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)’s flow reached MAD24.4 billion (about $2.6 billion) in late 2017, against MAD21.2 (about $2.3 billion) the previous year, corresponding to an increase by 15.4%. This figure was revealed by the Moroccan foreign exchange office. Regarding incomes from Moroccan living abroad (MRE), they grew by 4.5% to MAD65.4 billion (about 7.15 billion) over the same...

On Monday, Avenira announced that it has updated the mineral resources estimates of its Baobab phosphate mine. It underlines that the new assessments increase the project’s potential for longevity. The inferred mineral resource was estimated at 173 million tons of 18% P2O5, 10.9% more than the previous estimate while the indicated mineral resource remained at 34.9 million tons of...

In Botswana, the surface of corn, wheat, sorghum, and millet have been cut by 98%, during the current agricultural season, Bloomberg indicated. According to Thebe Nala, deputy director of agricultural production at the agriculture ministry, so far, only 6, 131 ha have been planted against 384, 250 ha a year before. This drastic drop is due to a dry spell that occurred...

The Congolese government has decided to dismiss the national electricity and water companies. “These two companies were characterized by a near-bankruptcy technical situation, had it not been for the government subsidies. Their poor performance in distribution and commercialization has had the impact of deteriorating relations with their respective customers and users, to the point of making...

On February 2, 2018, the Turkish textile group Ayka Textile announced the construction of an integrated cotton processing plant in Ouagadougou, Sidwaya reports. The facility, valued at CFA220 billion, is set to be completed in the next six months. It will run with energy supplied by a coal-fired plant (35 MW), while SOFITEX will provide 20,000 tons of fiber. The project is...

In Kenya, tea export incomes are expected to reach KSh135 billion ($1.3 billion) in 2018, up by KSh6 billion compared to the results from the previous year, Reuters reports.   According to Kenyan tea directorate, this performance should be spurred by an increase in export based on an assumption of production rebound in 2018 fostered by better weather condition. Tea output...

Islamic development bank (IDB) would have decided to sell its 21% share in Zitouna bank’s capital, a Tunisian bank specialized in Islamic funding.  A disagreement of specifications would be at the origin of this decision, according to Tunisian media. This withdrawal could benefit Triki group, a holding made of companies with various activities such as agribusiness, aviculture, furniture...

The Zambian minister of transport and communication announced that this year, he would enact laws to control the use of internet and its services in order to avoid the use of Internet getting out of hand. These measures are to regulate the use of social media. The measure has been decided after many complaints by the Presidential spokesman about the multiplication of abuses identified by...