BURKINA FASO:
Burkina Faso produced 683 000 Ton of cotton during the 2016/2017 season: ""At the end of the 2016/2017 campaign, the cotton production of Burkina Faso amounted to 683 000 Ton," said Georges Yameogo, the General Secretary of the Burkina Faso Textile Fiber Company (SOFITEX), in Bloomberg. If this result represents an increase of almost 100 000 Ton compared to the 2015/2016 season (581 000 Ton), it is still below the initial forecasts of the leaders (700,000 Ton). This slight decline holds, according to Yameogo, the low precipitation recorded in the month of September..."
High consumption products: The Ministry of Commerce controls the prices in Ouagadougou: "The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Handicraft continued, in the 24th of April 2017, the operation of the price control of the high consumption products, in Ouagadougou city. Launched last Friday, it aims at ensuring the effective application of the conclusions of the tripartite concertation framework government-private sector-civil society held in the 14th of March, 2017. In addition to prices, the control officers also check the expiry dates and the weights of the goods in the different visited shops..."
Case CIM METAL Group: The explanations of the prosecutor of Faso: "The CEO of CIM METAL Group Inoussa Kanazoé and several of his collaborators were arrested in the 19th of April, 2017, by the national gendarmerie. If, since then, one were to lose sight of the reasons for such an arrest, we know a little more since the 14th of April with the press conference that the prosecutor of Faso near the High Court of Ouagadougou, Maïza Sérémé, has animated. We are offering you the full opening statement..."
TOGO:
At the end of 2018, Orabank estimates that it will be able to multiply by four the eight billion net profits realized in 2015: "In its forecasts, Oranbank Group estimates a net profit of a 36.2 billion FCFA in net profit at the end of 2018. This will represent about a 4.5 times the 7.9 billion achieved at the end of 2015 and an average increase of 67% of this indicator between 2015 and 2018. The projection is fairly ambitious for the banking group based in Lomé, Togo, which is present in several countries, especially in West and Central Africa. In the five years leading up to 2016, it was not able to achieve this level of performance, but showed a record net profit of 17.4 billion CFAF in 2012."
Togo officially inaugurates its e-government network today: "The e-government network, platform for a digitized and interconnected administration, necessary to respond more effectively to the needs of the public service users, will be officially inaugurated in Togo in the 24th of April, 2017, by the President of the Republic Faure Gnassingbé. The Minister of Posts and the Digital Economy Cina Lawson, the prime contractor for the project, the execution of which lasted three years, will take part in the ceremony held in Lomé (the capital of Togo)..."
IVORY COAST:
Ivory Coast: Attijari Group will help creating two investment funds worth nearly 5 billion Dollar to finance tourism: "The investment bank of the Moroccan group Attijariwafa Bank will help Ivory Coast to develop 2 investment funds to finance its tourism sector. The announcement was made by the Ivorian tourism minister Siandou Fofana during a meeting of the Club Africa Development organized on Thursday, the 20th of April, 2017. The first of these funds is a "private investment fund dedicated to the tourism and hotel sector". According to the Ivorian tourism minister, this fund will consolidate the financing of the tourism sector by pooling several private players with the aim of financing major tourism projects with significant profitability..."
325 million Dollar from the World Bank for the electricity network: "Ivory coast has obtained a loan of 196 billion CFAF (over 325 million Dollar) from the International Development Association (IDA), a subsidiary of the World Bank. The financing has an interest rate of a 3% with a maturity of 25 years. The loan, which was awarded at the spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will be used to rehabilitate and extend the national electricity transmission and the distribution network. A share will also be devoted to the acceleration of the connection of households in 10 regional capitals and rural areas of the South-West of the country..."
GHANA:
COCOBOD will subsidize fertilizer instead of free distribution to the producers: "The Ghana Cocoa Council (COCOBOD) will subsidize fertilizer purchases made by producers. According to Noah Kwasi Amenyah, the institution's spokesman for Reuters, the price of the 50 Kg fertilizer bag will now be 80 Cedis (19 dollar) versus 151 Cedis (36 Dollar). The measure, which marks the end of the system of free supply of fertilizers to cocoa producers in force in the recent years, should, according to the spokesman, create the conditions for a more equitable market. In fact, according to many experts, the free supply of inputs, in addition to making producers dependent, has had the effect of reducing the competitiveness of fertilizer manufacturers in the market and of limiting competition..."
KENYA:
Kenya is adopting new measures to give a new breathe for its textile industry: "The Kenyan government has recently implemented new incentives for local textile manufacturers. According to Reuters, which reports the information, these provisions include a tax-free entry on materials, equipment manufacturing, and a tax levy on the 20% of sales of products from local manufacturers. This strategy, which is part of the Government's ambition to revitalize the textile industry, aims in particular at creating new jobs through the development of local production..."
SENEGAL:
10,000 Hectare of agricultural land ceded for 2 billion CFAF! : "For the populations of Fouta-Toro in northern Senegal, the pill has trouble to pass, and for good reason, the executive said it had signed a 40-year lease agreement with Moroccan group Addoha, led by the billionaire Anas Safrioui, covering 10,000 Hectare of farmland in the communes of Dodel and Demette. The news might seem trivial if the amount of the transaction was unusually low. The Moroccan industrialist, previously active in the Senegalese real estate market, will have to disburse only 2 billion CFAF, an amount that is unworthy and nurtures accusations of land grabbing..."
The Sendou power station could lose the ADB funding for the lack of conformity: "Following the complaints brought to its attention by the riparian populations, the African Development Bank (AfDB) will investigate the compliance of the coal-fired power plant at Sendou in Senegal. "The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group approved the assessment of the admissibility of a compliance audit of the project to build a 150 MW coal-fired power plant in the village of Bargny Minam in Senegal, financed by the ADB," said the financial institution in a statement. The experts of the Independent Inspection Mechanism of the Bank will therefore carry out in-depth investigations to determine whether the fears of the populations are justified..."
ZIMBABWE:
Zesa is considering borrowing 40 million Dollar from its customers for liquidity: "The Zimbabwe Energy Supply Authority (Zesa) is considering a 40 million Dollar loan from its ferrochrome producers to solve its liquidity problems. An anonymous source revealed to the Herald that the company had proposed to contract the loan in return for a promise of the uninterrupted supply of electricity except in case of force majeure. Ferrochrome producers have also proposed that the loan should constitute a prepayment for their future consumption and thereby be amortized with the supply of energy..."
MALI:
The Fekola mine, on track to start production in October: "In Mali, the Fekola gold mine is expected to go into production in October. This was stated by its owner, B2Gold, in its first quarter operating balance sheet. The company reports that the construction of the mine (75% completed at the end of March) is three months ahead of schedule and on budget. The earthworks and the construction of the treatment plant were 91% and 54% respectively. During the quarter, the development of the open pit mine continued to progress faster than anticipated, with a 2.6 million mining waste and 200,000 Ton of ore mined. B2Gold states that the average daily rate of extraction has increased from 25,000 Ton to 42,000 Ton..."
TANZANIA:
Black Rock Mining publishes the results of the Mahenge Project's PFS: "Black Rock Mining has published the results of the Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) of its Mahenge graphite project in Tanzania. According to the results, the project is expected to require a capital investment of 159 million Dollar with a net after-tax value of 624 million Dollar, and an after-tax internal rate of return of 48.2%. In addition, the PFS estimated a lifetime of 32 years. The project is expected to be developed in two phases, with the first phase producing 83,000 Ton of graphite per year over the first two years. The second phase, which will begin in the third year, will involve an annual production of graphite concentrate of 167 000 Ton..."
NIGERIA:
Airtel wakes up to 4G and joins Glo, Etisalat and MTN in the very high mobile broadband market: "The mobile operator Airtel Nigeria has launched its 4G mobile service across the country. Segun Ogusanya, the General Manager of the telecom company, explained that this new milestone in providing a high-quality service to populations was made possible thanks to the technical support of the Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer ZTE. The launching of the 4G by Airtel Nigeria takes place five years after the technical tests carried out successfully by the company in the country..."
Crédit : IMPERIUM MEDIA
