Tag: Week in Review

China will remove import duties from 98% of products imported from 16 low-income countries from the beginning of September, according to the Ministry of Finance. They include African countries like Togo, Mozambique, Chad, and Rwanda, as well as several Pacific Island states, and Asian developing economies like Cambodia and ...

China’s Belt and Road financing and investments fell in the first half of the year, with no new spending in Russia, Sri Lanka, and Egypt, according to a study by the Green Finance & Development Center in Shanghai. Financing and investments were at $28.4 billion in the first six months, ...

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned that Asian countries are at risk of becoming "chess pieces" in the burgeoning geopolitical rivalry with the United States. Instead, he argued to the ASEAN Secretariat on Monday that "the future of our region should be in our own hands." Wang's comments ...

Chinese foreign direct investment in BRI countries jumped 10.2% to $8.2 billion in the first five months of the year, according to new data from the Chinese government. Singapore, Indonesia and Pakistan were among the top FDI destinations in 2022. But the news wasn't so good for Chinese ...

Iran is the second country this week, after Argentina, to submit an application to join the BRICS club. The BRICS group is increasingly seen by both Beijing and Moscow as a potential alternative to the Western-led international economic order. Although the BRICS states have agreed to expand their ...

The United States will re-launch the Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative at next week's G7 conference with a new program that aims to provide an alternative to Chinese infrastructure financing in the Global South. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan did not provide many details on the new ...

The first meeting of the Zambia Creditor Committee, co-chaired by China and France, will convene on Thursday in Paris. IMF officials indicated on Wednesday that if everything proceeds smoothly with restructuring the country's $17.3 billion external debt, a bail-out deal with the fund could be reached by early ...

Chinese oil major Sinopec and Algerian oil giant Sonatrach signed a half-a-billion dollar deal to drill for oil and gas in the Zaarzaitine field, 1500km from Algiers. Under the new agreement, the two sides will produce 95 million barrels. The timing of the deal is notable given ...

China, not South Africa or France, will serve as co-chair of Zambia's new creditor committee, said Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane.  “It does make sense for our biggest creditor to play a leading part, to take a leading role in the proceedings,” Musokotwane told Bloomberg late last week. "They are ...

The long-held dream of transporting goods between Uganda and the Port of Mombasa became a reality on Monday with the inauguration of a new rail line that connects Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) with a newly refurbished meter gauge line in Uganda. This is a pared-down version of the ...

The demands of servicing debts, largely to China, are weighing heavily on Kenya's monetary system. The shilling dropped again in Monday trading and the central bank reported that foreign exchange reserves have plunged by $899 million over the last three months. Analysts say beyond the hundreds of millions ...

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni issued his first public comments about the media reports that incorrectly alleged the Entebbe International Airport is at risk of being forfeited to China.  "I don't remember mortgaging the airport for anything," President Museveni told Reuters over the weekend. "There is no problem, they ...