By Chijioke Ohuocha

LAGOS (Reuters) – The Nigerian central bank has weakened the naira by 0.6 percent in the last two weeks through dollar interventions on the official market aimed at narrowing the spread with the black market, traders said on Tuesday.

The naira was trading at 307.50 on the interbank market on Tuesday, almost 30 percent weaker than on the unapproved retail market where it was quoted at 435 per dollar.

The central bank had been selling dollars at 305 levels since August to support the Nigerian currency. However it devalued the naira last month for individuals, paving the way for a possible broader move to narrow black market rates.

“The central bank is depreciating the currency. It’s a deliberate effort to narrow the gap with the black market,” one trader at a major local bank told Reuters.

The central bank, which declined to comment, is due to announce its decision on interest rates at 1330 GMT with markets watching for signs of a more relaxed foreign exchange rate regime after the government this month called for “market-determined” rate.

A Reuters poll expects the bank to leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 14 percent to tackle high inflation.

The West African country has tried to make the exchange rate more flexible before, leading to a 30 percent devaluation last year, only to reimpose a quasi currency peg, creating multiple exchange rates.

Two weeks ago Nigeria unveiled an economic recovery plan, including measures to relax foreign exchange restrictions, in a drive to pull Africa’s largest economy out of its first recession in 25 years.

It said the central bank will aim to achieve a market-determined exchange rate regime, but did not specify whether this would mean allowing the naira to float freely or keeping the current system of dollar injections to address shortages.

The bank’s governor later said he was not convinced about a currency float due to its effect on inflation, which fell for the first time in 15 months in February.

Instead the bank has sold millions of dollars via currency forwards on the official market in recent weeks to try to clear a backlog of demand and narrow black market rates which traded as weak as 520 last month.

(Editing by Alexander Smith)

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CAIRO (Reuters) – The World Bank has disbursed another $1 billion in financial assistance to Egypt out of its $3 billion loan programme with the country, the bank said in a statement on Monday.

Egypt has been negotiating billions of dollars in aid from various lenders to help revive an economy hit by political upheaval since a 2011 revolt and to ease a dollar shortage that has crippled imports and hampered its recovery.

“The government has taken important steps in implementing key policy and institutional reforms that are laying down the foundations for accelerated job creation and inclusive growth,” said Dr. Asad Alam, World Bank Country Director for Egypt, Yemen and Djibouti in the statement.

The World Bank issued the first $1 billion tranche of the loan in 2015, with two more instalments of the same size to follow, linked to additional reforms that the government planned.

Faced with a gaping budget deficit, Egypt began a series of painful economic reforms and has taken steps to lower fuel subsidies, introduced a new value-added tax (VAT) and let its currency float freely in the foreign exchange market in November to attract foreign inflows.

Sahar Nasr, Egypt’s minister of investment and international cooperation, said in a statement that the second tranche will help spur private sector investment and development projects and services, which should help improve people’s standard of living.

Hafez Ghanem, the World Bank’s vice president for the Middle East and North Africa, told Reuters this month that Cairo’s next set of economic reforms should focus on making its bureaucracy more transparent for investors.

Egypt expects to receive the second tranche of a $12 billion International Monetary Fund loan in May or June, Finance Minister Amr El-Garhy told Reuters last week.

(Reporting by Lin Noueihed; Additional reporting by Ehab Farouk; Writing by Amina Ismail; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

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DAR AS SALAAM (Reuters) – The World Bank will lend Tanzania $2.4 billion over the next three years to finance infrastructure projects, the bank’s president Jim Yong Kim said on Monday.

Tanzania is seeking financing for infrastructure projects as part of its plans to transforming the country into a regional transport and trade hub.

“Tanzania will be able to access an estimated $2.4 billion in concessional financing, an increase of half a billion dollars over the past three-year period,” Kim said during a visit to Tanzania’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

Kim and Tanzania’s President John Magufuli also attended the signing of documents on three World Bank-funded projects worth $780 million aimed at improving public infrastructure.

East Africa’s second-biggest economy wants to profit from its long coastline and upgrade its rickety railways and roads to serve the growing economies in the land-locked heart of Africa.

Big gas finds in Tanzania and oil discoveries in Kenya and Uganda have turned east Africa into an exploration hotspot for oil firms, but transport infrastructure in those countries has suffered from decades of under-investment.

(Reporting by Fumbuka Ng’wanakilala; Editing by Aaron Maasho and Hugh Lawson)

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By Jessica Resnick-Ault and Florence Tan

NEW YORK/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – China’s Sinopec is nearing a deal to buy Chevron’s South African oil assets for up to $1 billion to secure its first major refinery on the continent, several people familiar with the matter said.

China Petroleum and Chemical Corp, or Sinopec, Asia’s largest oil refiner, was the last bidder remaining, and close to a deal with Chevron after an auction that spanned more than a year for its refinery, retails business and storage terminals.

French oil firm Total and commodity traders Glencore and Gunvor looked at the assets, Reuters reported last year.

The South Africa government’s desire to keep the refinery operating has nevertheless proven to be a major stumbling point for buyers who would prefer to convert the site into a more profitable storage terminal, sources said.

Sinopec is in discussions with the government on ways to keep the 110,000 barrels per day refinery in Cape Town running, but talks could still fail, sources said.

The sources declined to be identified because they were not authorised to discuss the matter publicly.

Chinese oil companies and merchant traders have become more visible in chasing refinery assets that come on the market as oil majors reshape asset portfolios.

Sinopec declined to comment.

Chevron spokesman Braden Reddall said “the process of soliciting expressions of interest in the 75 percent shareholding is ongoing”. Plans to sell the stake in the South African business, including the Cape Town refinery, were first announced in January 2016.

Besides the refinery, Chevron has interests in a lubricants plant in Durban on the east coast, storage tanks and a network of Caltex service stations, making it one of South Africa’s top five petroleum brands.

Financial advisor Rothschild & Co is helping Chevron on the sale of the assets.

The remaining 25 percent interest is held by a consortium of Black Economic Empowerment shareholders and an employee trust.

(Additional reporting by Ron Bouss and Dmitry Zhdannikov in London, Joe Brock in Johannesburg and Chen Aizhu in Beijing; writing by Anshuman Daga; editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Susan Fenton)

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Investment company Allan Gray said on Friday its 16 percent stake in Net1 allowed it to call a shareholders’ meeting over the payment technology provider’s handling of the scandal over a South African welfare contract.

South Africa’s Constitutional Court was set to rule on Friday in a case concerning the unlawful tender of a contract to Net1 unit Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) to manage welfare benefits to 17 million people.

The stakes are high as the welfare system is a lifeline for South Africa’s most vulnerable and includes more than 11 million child support grants, many of whom would go hungry without the monthly payment.

Allan Gray could push for the removal of the Net1 board, Chief Investment Officer Andrew Lapping was quoted in the Business Day newspaper.

“Sixteen percent allows us to call a shareholders’ meeting,” Allan Gray Chief Operating Officer Rob Dower told Talk Radio 702.

Friday’s looming judgment by the country’s top court stems from a case brought by applicants who want it to take oversight of a new contract.

South African President Jacob Zuma said in parliament on Thursday there was no “crisis”. Earlier this week the country’s chief justice placed the blame for the debacle squarely on the shoulders of Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini, calling her inaction incomprehensible.

The creation of a welfare safety net which supports one in three South Africans has been one of the signature achievements of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), in power since the end of white apartheid rule in 1994.

The chaos in South Africa’s social security agency comes three years after the Constitutional Court ruled that the tender won by CPS was illegal.

The government was given time until April 1 to take responsibility for social service payments or find a new provider, but it has so far failed to do so, raising concerns that grants may not be paid on time next month.

(Reporting by Ed Stoddard; Editing by James Macharia)

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