(1) Director of the African Department at the International Monetary Fund (IjjMF) Abebe Aemro Selassie moderates the Governor Talks with him is
Nigeria’s Minister of Finance Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed at the IMF Headquarters during the ongoing 2019 IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings in Washington D.C. United States.
The G-20 Group Photo held at the IMF Headquarters during the 2019 IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings, October 17, 2019 in Washington, DC. IMF Photograph/Ryan Rayburn
(2) Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the G-20 Countries after their meeting yesterday during the ongoing International Monetary Fund/World Bank Annual Meetings in Washing D.C.United States.
Director of the African Department Abebe Aemro Selassie moderates the Governor Talks – Nigeria with Nigeria’s Minister of Finance Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed at the IMF Headquarters during the 2019 IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings, October 17, 2019 in Washington, DC. IMF Photograph/Cory Hancock
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.
Mara Phones has officially opened the first smartphone manufacturing facility in South Africa, located in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.
The manufacturing plant is the result of a R1.5-billion investment by Mara Phones that was supported by the government, and the opening on 17 October 2019 was attended by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“The investment in South Africa by Mara Phones with the support of the Government of South Africa has already created almost 200 jobs, of which over 60% are women and over 90% are skilled, unemployed youth,” Mara Phones said.
“Mara Phones South Africa is expected to generate about 1,500 direct jobs over a period of 6 years and thousands of indirect jobs, which will contribute to the reduction in unemployment and enhance the transfer of high-tech knowledge in South Africa.”
Devices and plans
The Mara Phones factory is designed to assemble high-quality smartphones at affordable prices for South African consumers.
So far, the factory will be producing two devices — the Mara X and the Mara Z.
These devices are described as having long-lasting batteries, immense storage space, and Android One compatibility — which means they are guaranteed to receive Android updates for two years.
The pricing for these devices is detailed below:
Mara X — R2,999
Mara Z — R3,999
The Mara Z and Mara X feature similar designs and sizes, although the Mara Z is slightly larger and sports higher-end hardware.
Mara Phones also plans to launch physical experience stores across the country on its own and through franchises.
“Korea has Samsung, China has Huawei & Tecno, USA has Apple, and now Africa has Mara Phones!” said Mara Phones CEO Ashish J. Thakkar.
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world
Young people from around the world have been urged to embrace Agriculture both as a hobby and as a future profession. This was known yesterday as young students from across the world gathered at Des Moines Iowa United States at the Global Youth Institute to interact with Nobel and World Food Prize laureates. This year, 450 exceptional high school students from 10 countries attended the three-day Global Youth Institute hosted by the World Food Prize Foundation to facilitate discussion on pressing food security and agricultural issues.
2002 World Food Prize Laureate, Pedro Sanchez
The director of youth leadership development at the World Food Prize Foundation, Kelsey Tyrrell, told the young audience that African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina had been invited because of his advocacy and promotion of agriculture as a career for young people.
“After winning the World Food Prize in 2017, he dedicated his prize money to youth empowerment programmes. We wanted you to know that you have the power to make global change, and Adesina knows the incredible power that young people have,” Kelsey said. The African Development Bank is committed to ensuring that Africa’s agriculture is digitally enabled and has launched the Digital Solutions for African Agriculture program, which supports governments and the private sector.
Digital Solutions for African Agriculture program supports the public and private sector to introduce and scale-up transformative digital solutions. This includes super platforms for e-registries, e-extension, soil information maps, e-commerce and digital marketplaces for agri-inputs and outputs, tracking and traceability systems, and e-Agri-governance.
The Bank is implementing programs that harness the power of technology to drive the future of agriculture, such as using drones to survey fields and monitor harvests.
“Building the food industry of tomorrow requires that we build the leaders of those industries today. The opportunities offered by the Global Youth Institute are intended to construct for you the highway to becoming tomorrow’s leaders of the food and agriculture industry,” the Bank President told the students. Adesina is the 2017 World Food Prize Laureate. “Digitisation will attract more young people like you into agriculture. Agriculture is really where you want to be,” he said.
Former President of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo attended the morning session. On Wednesday night, Adesina hosted a dinner in honour of the President of the World Food Prize Foundation, Kenneth Quinn, who is retiring from the organization. Quinn described the Bank’s work as transformative.
Also speaking at the dinner, the 2002 World Food Prize Laureate, Pedro Sanchez, commended the Bank for its work in agriculture, comparing it to that of Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1970 and founder of the World Food Prize.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.
Egypt is fully committed to its program to sell minority stakes in state companies and is tackling a number of issues that have held it up, a government advisor on the share sales said on Thursday.
The government has been talking for years about selling the stakes but has repeatedly postponed the program, raising doubts among some economists about its commitment to privatization.
“From the meetings I attend on a weekly basis, the government is as keen as I have ever seen them on proceeding with the privatization program,” Mohamed Metwally, CEO of NI Capital, told Reuters.
“There has never been slack on this. It’s just a matter of sometimes you face things that take longer to prepare than expected,” said Metwally in his first interview with the media since taking over as NI Capital’s CEO in July.
The government set up NI Capital in late 2015 as a state-owned financial services company to help it navigate financial markets.
The government announced in 2016 that it was selling company stakes, with some to be sold by the end of that year. Since then it has sold only 4.5% of one company, tobacco monopoly Eastern Company in a transaction in March.
Metwally said the delays had been caused by weak markets, legal hurdles, the readiness of each company’s financial documentation and in the case of some companies a downturn in the business cycle.
Egypt last year released a list of 23 state-controlled companies to be brought to market as an initial batch.
The first sales will be companies already trading on the Egyptian Exchange, most likely Abu Qir Fertilisers and Chemicals Industries and Alexandria Container and Cargo Handling Co., sources familiar with the planned transactions told Reuters.
Metwally, citing reasons of financial compliance, declined to discuss individual companies before they reached the market.
He said stake sales could raise around 40 billion Egyptian pounds, roughly equal to 5% of the stock market’s current capitalisation of 750 billion-800 billion pounds.
Among the hurdles bringing companies to market has been a tangle of ownership structures, with different entities requiring different legal processes for selling their assets.
“We had a few transactions that were held up by this process, but now it’s behind us,” Metwally said.
Plans Affected By Aramco’s Planned IPO
A potential future delay to the Egyptian share sales could be the initial public offering of Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Aramco, which may be announced as early as next week.
“Right now liquidity is being sucked out of the market because of anticipation of the Aramco offering,” Metwally said.
If the Aramco sale raises more than $25 billion, it would make it the world’s biggest IPO.
“Now should it (the Egyptian sales) happen, let’s say, in November, or wait till January or February when the Aramco IPO is out of the way?” he said.
Another stumbling block has been the trade war between China and the United States, which by creating a glut in products sold by some of the companies reduced their prices by 30–40% and temporarily lowered valuations, Metwally said.
He said these issues were all being resolved, paving the way for a possibly rapid roll-out.
“Progress is happening in every single transaction,” he said.
“That might put us in a high-quality problem in the future, in which they’re all ready at the same time, and we’ll just have to schedule them one after the other as part of our capital markets management process.” (Reporting by Patrick Werr; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world
The case stems from a legal battle between the government and power producer IPTL, which led to the dismissal of several cabinet ministers in 2014.
Tanzania also faces at least two other multi-million claims from international investors.
Tanzania has been ordered by a World Bank arbitration court to pay $185 million to the Hong Kong subsidiary of Standard Chartered for breaching an energy contract.
The court’s ruling, which was released on Tuesday, adds to pressure on the country, which faces at least two other multi-million claims from international investors.
Here Is All You Need To Know
The case stems from a legal battle between the Tanzanian government and privately-owned independent power producer IPTL, which led to the dismissal of several cabinet ministers in 2014.
The award by the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes is less than the $352.5 million sought by Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong, which was not immediately available for comment.
The government of Tanzania denied any responsibility and said it was not planning to pay the damages.
“Neither the government nor (state power company) Tanesco, have a legal liability in these cases,” Tanzania government spokesman Hassan Abbasi said on Twitter on Wednesday.
Tanzania’s attorney general Adelardus Kilangi said that IPTL, not the government, would have to pay Standard Chartered.
“When the award says that the Tanzanian government should pay Standard Chartered Bank, the actual meaning is that the government should supervise IPTL to make the payment,” he told Reuters.
IPTL did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Tanzania faces at least two other cases at the World Bank tribunal.
US firm Symbion Power said in 2017 it was seeking $561 million from Tanesco at the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce’s International Court of Arbitration for breach of contract.
In 2017, a Canadian construction firm seized one of Tanzania’s new Q400 turbo-prop planes in Canada over a $38 million lawsuit related to a compensation ruling by the International Court of Arbitration.
Aviation sources said Tanzania reached a settlement to secure the aircraft, which was released in March 2018.
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world
As part of efforts aimed at helping Burkina Faso tackle the challenges posed by prolonged drought and collapse of commodity prices and improve on food security, the World Bank has granted Burkina Faso a loan of over US$200 million to finance its agriculture resilience and competitiveness project.
Burkinabe Minister of Economy, Finance and Development Lassane Kabore
The Burkinabe Minister of Economy, Finance and Development Lassane Kabore signed the loan agreement with Soukeyna Kane, World Bank’s Country Director for Burkina Faso yesterday in Washington D.C at the ongoing IMF/World Bank annual general meetings.
The agricultural project is designed to boost agricultural productivity and market access for small producers and small and medium agribusiness entrepreneurs for selected value-chains in the project-covering areas.
It will be carried out in many regions across Burkina Faso, enabling the cultivation of 5,494 hectares of land, including 4,497 hectares with complete water resources control. This project, approved on August 30, this year, is expected to close on November 30, 2025.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.
Efforts geared towards preserving one of Africa’s dwindling rain forest region in Gabon get a boost with support from Norway. This makes Gabon the latest African nation to receive funding to preserve its rainforests to mitigate the effects of climate change. As part of a 10-year deal, Norway will pay $150 million to Gabon to battle deforestation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The deal is part of the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI), which was launched by the United Nations in 2015 to link European donors with countries in Africa. The partnership sets a carbon floor price of $10 per certified ton and will be paid on the basis of verified results from 2016 through to 2025.
In 2014, Liberia was promised $150 million by Norway to completely stop cutting down its trees in return for development aid with the hope of stopping deforestation by 2020. Gabon, which is on the Atlantic Ocean, has just 2 million people and abundant natural resources. Forests cover almost 90 percent of the country.
Since the early 2000, it has created more than a dozen national parks to preserve the forests. Gabon also has around 12% of the Congo Basin forest, which is considered the world’s second largest tropical rainforest. The country hosts 60% of Africa’s surviving forest elephants, which CAFI describes as “a key indicator of sound natural resource governance.”
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.
THE Angolan government says it remains committed to subsidies removal but needs to balance reforms with the goal of diversifying the economy away from its heavy reliance on oil. This is coming amid criticism from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over the subsidies.
Angolan Minister of Finance Vera Daves
Speaking on the issue yesterday in Washington D.C. on the sidelines of the ongoing International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank annual meetings, the Angolan Minister of Finance Vera Daves, the first woman to head the Treasury of Africa’s second-largest oil producer, says the government has ended support for industries, including electricity and water, but would continue to provide fuel subsidies for agriculture and fishing for the time being.
“We need to remove subsidies, that is right, but we also need to create conditions in sectors that are not as efficient as oil,” she adds. The IMF had in March, this year approved a $3.7 billion loan programme for Angola, has criticized the subsidies, saying they contradicted the government’s stated reform policy. The country has been working on economic diversification from oil to cushion the effect of price fluctuations.
THE conversation on ways to reduce poverty and spur growth at the ongoing IMF/World Bank meetings was, indeed a harvest of ideas. Jordan’s Minister of Planning, Mr Mohammed Al-Assiss, who was in the discussion panel, identified energy as a huge handicap in the country’s effort to stem the tide of poverty.
Jordan’s Minister of Planning, Mr Mohammed Al-Assiss
For Republic of Niger Minister of Planning Madame Aichatou Kane, her country is doing its best to transform the economic landscape and empower the people to excel and overcome poverty while Kenya proudly announced that it was, indeed, taking giant strides to effectively handle the issue of job creation for its youths.
The Governor, Central Bank of Kenya, Mr Patrick Njuroge, observed that though the issue of poverty might be huge in Africa, there was need to demonstrate sensitivity to the needs of the people. He was however optimistic that the African Continental Free Trade Area holds plenty of promise to the people and will help spur growth in needed ways.
President of the World Bank, Mr David Malpass, who played the neutral role of encouraging discussion in the crucial areas of economic development, commended the efforts of many countries in Africa but called for transparency and connectivity with the people in dealing with the issues inimical to growth and wealth creation.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.
LINGERING trade tension between the United States and China as well as geopolitical rivalry across the world is weighing on global economic growth, according to IMF’s latest assessment published in the World Economic Outlook, released at the start of the IMF/World Bank annual meetings, in Washington DC.
Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s Chief Economist
President Donald Trump’s weaponization of trade against China is affecting global growth prospects as the IMF has downgraded economic growth by 0.2 percent from its last forecast in April to 1.7 percent in 2019 and would remain there in 2020. Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s Chief Economist, specifically blamed contracting manufacturing especially automobile due to rising tariff and prolonged trade uncertainty on weak growth prospects. Thanks to these factors, she said trade volume declined to 1% in the first half of 2019. In contrast with trade, services, according to Gopinath, continue to hold up and this has buoyed labour market and wage growth.
The uptick in growth projections in 2020 is anchored by emerging market and developing economies that are projected to experience growth rebound of 4.6 percent, according to the IMF. Emerging market economies that had experienced mild recessions such as Argentina, Iran, and Turkey are expected to see recoveries in 2020.
What to do to raise growth? Ms Gopinath says policymakers must undo trade barriers with durable agreements and reduce domestic policy uncertainty.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.
