Category Archives: Africa

Renminbi may replace dollar in Sino-African trade

In BusinessDay SA: CHINA’s renminbi could replace the dollar as the main currency to finance trade between Chinese and African countries, research by Standard Bank shows. In a sign of China’s growing influence as Africa’s largest trading partner and investor, Standard Bank estimated that up to 40%, or $100bn, of China’s trade would be denominated in renminbi… Read More »

Nigerian government’s not-so-detailed medium-term economic plan

From NEXT: Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said at her maiden media briefing yesterday in Abuja that though government was not discarding its blueprint for economic development captured under the Vision 20-2020 and the Transforming Nigeria document, government has identified some key sectors that must be addressed to create the enabling environment for growth. These… Read More »

Grim story of asylum application denied, self-sacrifice, and possible denial of citizenship

The boy was 13 when a dawn immigration raid abruptly ended his father’s four-year quest for political asylum in Britain. By nightfall of that day in 2005, father and son were hundreds of miles from home, locked in the privately run Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Center here, scheduled for deportation to their native Angola in… Read More »

The Economist Intelligence Unit reports on Banking in Sub-Saharan Africa

The Executive Summary: African countries south of the Sahara are poised to enjoy a surge in growth in their banking systems during this decade. The three main drivers of this development will be generally very high rates of economic growth, financial deepening to fulfil huge unmet needs for basic financial services and new technologies to… Read More »

In the spirit of debt ceilings and triple-A ratings

Just so you don’t forget that there are countries where these issues really do matter. Remember Cote d’Ivoire and the civil war that was ended with the help of France? Well, in January this year, the country defaulted on its Eurobond that was issued only last year. They’ve also decided that they won’t start servicing… Read More »

“Europe needs Africa. Who’d have thought it?”

…is the title of a piece by Knox Chitiyo for the Guardian. An excerpt: The UK’s engagement with Africa is often expressed in terms of a “new scramble for Africa“, but this misses out what Africa wants. Certainly Africa wants partnerships with the west, but these need to be equal partnerships that also serve Africa’s… Read More »

On financial services in Africa

From a new Accenture report titled At the tipping point: Financial services in Africa comes of age: The Accenture research study… highlights new growth triggers for financial services, pointing to rapid market development in some countries. While the paths to growth vary, these triggers often include innovation through (very) low-cost offerings and distribution, dramatically opening up… Read More »