Category: Finance
Week in Review: Hostages Rescued in Mali, Rwandan Agribusiness & Nigeria Joins AIIB
Malian security forces on Monday rescued three Chinese nationals kidnapped by unknown assailants after the trio escaped their captors over the weekend. The three construction workers and two colleagues from Mauritania were seized on July 17. While the Mauritanians were freed 10 days later, the Chinese were held ...
Debt Relief for World’s Poorest Countries Barely Mentioned at G20 Summit in Rome
Leaders from the world's wealthiest countries meeting in Rome over the weekend covered a lot of ground on everything from finalizing an agreement on a global minimum corporate tax to new climate-related commitments. But for a ...
With New Chinese Money Hard to Come By, Kenya’s Treasury Turns to the Bond Market to Finance Infrastructure
The Kenyan government is making preparations to float its largest-ever bond offering, a record $1.3 billion (Sh150 billion) issuance. It will be used to settle debts with contractors, possibly including some Chinese companies, and to fund road projects that are currently in development.
Nigeria Unveils a Chinese-Style Digital Currency Platform
Nigeria's President, Muhammadu Buhari, unveiled the country's new digital currency platform, eNaira, on Monday. It is Africa's first virtual currency. The new service will allow Nigerians to make contactless payments, move money between accounts and manage their accounts virtually. Unlike other ...
We Now Know More About Zambia’s Debt… And It’s Not Good
The Zambian government owes creditors close to $27 billion, according to new data released by the Finance Ministry on Wednesday. The majority of those debts, $16.86 billion, are owed to foreign creditors and also include half a billion dollars of penalties for late payments. ...
Ghana Points to Difficulties Ahead For African Governments’ Access to Capital
The premiums that investors are charging Ghana to buy its debt have surged six-fold to the highest levels since the beginning of the pandemic, making it a lot more expensive for the country to borrow money from global capital markets. The ...
African Countries At Risk From China’s Economic Deceleration
The South African rand has long served as a sort of early warning system for investors to gauge the impact of Chinese economic news. And yesterday, the alarms sounded as the value of the South African currency fell 1.1% in response to worse-than-expected third-quarter data ...
Two Totally Different Messages Emerge on the Same Day Over the Health of the Kenyan Economy
Kenya's Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani provided parliament with an upbeat forecast of the country's economic recovery in the post-pandemic era. Yatani reaffirmed on Wednesday his earlier projection that economic growth would remain at a healthy 6% next year and the country's ballooning fiscal deficit ...
African Borrowers Need to Wake Up to the Reality of Chinese Loans
Chinese lending to developing countries has come under sharp focus since the release of several reports that have reshaped the debate. Unsurprisingly, many news reports, like the BBC’s “China: Big spender or loan shark” are ringing the alarm bells. However, I’d argue that the reports should rather prompt new ...
Even After China Bailed on Its Sengwa Coal Plant in Zimbabwe, RioZim Seems Unusually Confident It’ll Find Other Backers
Many presumed that the $3 billion Sengwa coal-fired power plant project in Zimbabwe was doomed after the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China withdrew its support earlier this year as the project's largest financier. Not so, according to plant's owner RioZim that said in its half-year trading ...
Africa Accounts For Just 1.7% of China’s Total Global Investment Stock, Says MOFCOM
Even amid the pandemic, Chinese investment overseas last year increased by 12.3% to $153.71 billion, according to a new report published last week by the Ministry of Commerce, National Bureau of Statistics, and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. 2.8% of ...
New Report Examines China’s Expanding Role in Multilateral Development Banks
China is increasingly turning to Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to pursue its geopolitical agenda and promote alternate norms of global governance, according to a new report published on Wednesday by the London-based Overseas Development Institute. The report by Chris ...