Algeria plans interest-free local bond to offset dive in energy income

Algeria plans to raise money from an interest-free local bond, using a model the government hopes will draw more participation from the public and help it offset a huge fall in its energy earnings.The North African OPEC member has already cut public spending, introduced new taxes and reduced government subsidies on fuel to help it cope with the halving of its income from oil and gas due to a long slide in international energy prices. Finance Minister...

Read More

Nigeria's dollar reserves rise to more than 19-month high - cenbank

Nigeria's foreign exchange reserves rose to a more than 19-month high of $29.45 billion as of Feb. 24, central bank data showed on Tuesday, as Africa's biggest economy tries to rebuild its dollar buffers hammered by low oil prices.Nigeria's dollar reserves have been rising steadily since October 19, when they stood at $23.89 billion. The central bank did not provide any reason for the rise in its reserves, which coincides with a recent rise in crude...

Read More

Nigeria's NNPC says oil output up to 2.1 mln bpd

Nigeria's oil production has risen to 2.1 million barrels a day, the managing director of state oil firm NNPC said on Tuesday, without giving an explanation for the increase."We are hoping that by the end of 2017 we should ramp up production to above 2.2 million barrels (per day)," Maikanti Baru told an oil conference in Abuja. OPEC member Nigeria has given differing figures for its oil output in recent weeks.Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said...

Read More

African leadership prize fails to find a winner - again

Sudanese telecoms magnate Mo Ibrahim failed to award a $5 million African political leadership prize on Tuesday, the second year running the gong designed to foster regional democracy has gone begging due to a lack of suitable candidates.Since its launch in 2006, the Ibrahim Prize has only been awarded four times - to Mozambique's Joaquim Chissano, Botswana's Festus Mogae, Cape Verde's Pedro De Verona Rodrigues Pires and Namibia's Hifikepunye Pohamba...

Read More

Nigeria's Zenith Bank to seek approval to raise 100 bln naira

Nigeria's Zenith Bank said on Tuesday it would seek shareholder approval next month to raise 100 billion naira ($318 million) via a combination of share or bond sale and global depository receipts.The lender also said it would seek approval to increase its share capital to 40 billion naira from 20 billion naira at the shareholders' meeting on March 22.Zenith Bank on Monday reported a 2016 pretax profit of 156.75 billion naira, up from 125.62 billion...

Read More

All participating countries committed to oil output deal, says OPEC Sec-Gen

 OPEC-led oil production cuts have been well supported by all participating countries despite some teething troubles for non-OPEC members, the cartel's secretary-general, Mohammed Barkindo, said on Monday.Barkindo also said OPEC remained optimistic that the "worst was over" for the oil market, almost two months into the group's supply cut deal with Russia and other producers."For non-OPEC countries this is the first time so we can expect teething...

Read More

Uganda coffee exports up 21 pct in January on year ago

Uganda's coffee exports rose 21 percent in January to 404,673 60-kg bags compared with the same month in 2016, helped by new trees starting to fruit, the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) said in a report on Tuesday.Uganda is Africa's largest coffee exporter and the commodity is a major source of foreign exchange for the East African country which predominantly cultivates Robusta variety.UCDA said the rise in bean shipments was on "account...

Read More

Nigeria's economy contracted by 1.5 pct in 2016 on lower oil prices

Nigeria's gross domestic product fell by 1.5 percent in 2016 due to lower oil revenues, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday, for its first annual contraction in 25 years.Africa's largest economy slid into recession in the second quarter of 2016 as a slump in crude prices hammered the OPEC member's public finances. Crude sales make up two-thirds of government revenue.Fourth-quarter GDP shrank by 1.3 percent, the statistics office said....

Read More

South Africa's Nedbank slashes Ecobank value by $293 million

 South Africa's Nedbank booked a $293 million writedown on the value of its west African associate Ecobank on Tuesday, and reported its slowest growth in annual profit since 2009. Ecobank's operations in central and west Africa have been exposed to economies pressured by the sharp slide in commodity prices and unfavourable currency swings. The writedown reduces Ecobank's carrying value to 4 billion rand ($308 million) from 7.8 billion rand,...

Read More

The word 'immigrant' is used to make people fear the unknown

Inua Ellams could be described as a poet, a performer, a graphic designer, a visual artist, even a walking-tour operator. But the role he's come all the way to Western Australia to play is much more topical."The show could have been called An Evening with a Terrible Basketball Player or An Evening with a Reluctant Vegetarian," he says of his one-man performance piece, An Evening with an Immigrant. "There's so many ways of looking at [my life]. This...

Read More

Nigerian naira gains to 460 per dollar, highest in more than three months - traders

Nigerian naira rose on the black market to its highest in more than three months on Friday, after several interventions by the central bank on the official market, traders said.The local currency was quoted at 460 to the dollar on the black market at 1327 GMT, compared with 495 the previous day. The naira had weakened to around 520 to the dollar on Monday, before the central bank effectively devalued it for retail customers, in an effort to end dollar shortag...

Read More

David Oyelowo on his film career and political déjà vu

As David Oyelowo and I spoke by phone recently, a protest against Donald Trump's immigration ban was raging outside his New York hotel. It seemed fitting, because his new film, A United Kingdom , centres on a family who's kept apart by governmental prejudice.It also seemed like déjà vu. Two years ago, when Oyelowo was in a similar New York hotel promoting Selma , about Martin Luther King Jr.'s battle for civil rights (he played King), a similar civil...

Read More

Risk of Nigeria devaluing naira rising, but it won't float freely

Nigeria's authorities may soon devalue the naira but won't fully relinquish control over it, instead taking steps to narrow the gap between the official and black market rates to boost confidence in the economy, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.A shortage of dollars in Nigeria - for big and small needs including capital imports to the manufacturing process, travel and school fees - has led the black market to charge a higher premium in compensation...

Read More

South Africa's Liberty to buy 75 pct stake in Nigerian insurer

South Africa's Liberty Holdingswill acquire a 75 percent stake in a Nigerian long-term insurer for 160 million rand ($12 million), the company said on Friday, after reporting a 38 percent decline in earnings.Liberty has been expanding beyond its home base to parts of Africa, where a growing middle class is driving demand. Part of Liberty's strategy is to grow its presence in West Africa through the long-term insurance business and by entering the...

Read More

Nigerian student protesters demand South Africans leave the country

Nigerian protesters on Thursday demanded that South African citizens and businesses leave the country and vandalised the head office of mobile phone giant MTN in Abuja in retaliation for anti-Nigerian violence in South Africa.The National Association of Nigeria Students (NANS) said it had given South Africans 48 hours to get out otherwise the attacks would continue and the vandalisation of MTN's offices would be just the beginning. Nigeria and South...

Read More

Nigeria to tap private capital, boost spending on infrastructure

Nigeria aims to rise the proportion of government spending devoted to infrastructure to 30 percent from 10 percent and to mobilise private capital for additional funding, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said on Thursday.The government has laid out plans to spend a record 7.29 trillion naira in 2017, up from 6.06 trillion naira budgeted for last year, but must also find funds to cover a big shortfall in the budget resulting from lower prices for oil,...

Read More

IMF urges Nigeria to implement 'coherent and credible' economic policies

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Thursday urged Nigeria to step up its economic reform efforts before the opportunity for reforms becomes more limited."Urgency is needed in implementing a coherent and credible package of monetary, fiscal and structural policies as the window for bold reforms is closing as the 2019 elections are approaching fast," IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said at a regular news briefing with reporters.Rice also confirmed that...

Read More

Nigeria seeks new $500 mln Eurobond sale to fund budget deficit

Nigeria's acting president has written to parliament to seek approval for a new $500 million Eurobond sale, a statement said on Wednesday, to help make up for a shortfall in the government's budget.Africa's biggest economy is experiencing its first recession in 25 years, and government revenue has plunged due to a slump in global oil prices and militant attacks in its crude-producing heartland, the Niger Delta. The new issue would follow the government's...

Read More

Ghana producer inflation falls to 3.1 pct in January

Ghana's producer price inflation fell to 3.1 percent year-on-year in January from a revised 4.8 percent the month before as the impact of fuel prices rises a year ago was reduced, the statistics office said on Wednesday. It is a far cry from the more than 48 percent seen less than three years ago, but the fall was mainly in manufacturing rather than mining, where gold is one of Ghana's top three foreign exchange earners. Mining and quarrying...

Read More

Nigeria sovereign wealth fund assets almost doubled by end-Q3 2016

2017  Assets held by Nigeria's sovereign wealth fund almost doubled to 413.63 billion naira ($1.36 billion) by the end of the third quarter of 2016 from the beginning of the year, it said on Wednesday. The Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority's (NSIA's) assets rose 93.6 percent from 213.67 billion naira at the end of 2015, according to a presentation shown at a press briefing in Abuja.The boost in a "fairly solid year" came after the NSIA deployed more capital, while "equity markets were very strong," said Managing Director Uche Orji.©...

Read More

Nigeria wants to borrow $2.3 billion from World Bank and China-finance minister

Nigeria wants to borrow at least $1 billion from the World Bank and to sign within months for a $1.3 billion loan from China to fund railway projects, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said on Tuesday.Africa's biggest economy needs to plug a gap in its record 7.3 trillion naira ($23.17 billion) 2017 budget, which boosts capital expenditures by a quarter to end its first recession in 25 years due to low oil prices. The government has been in talks with...

Read More