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Tunisia, IMF hold talks on credit, economic reforms

18 February 2016 Comments (0) Business, Latest Updates from Reuters, Middle East

TUNIS (Reuters) – The IMF began talks with Tunisia on Thursday over a new credit programme, tied to measures to strengthen its economy and finances and likely to be worth at least $1.7 billion over four years, a central bank official told Reuters.

Tunisia’s economy has struggled since the 2011 uprising against autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali that sparked the Arab Spring revolutions across North Africa. Two attacks last year by Islamist militants hurt its tourism industry.

Protests to demand work last month turned violent, underscoring the fragility of the economic growth that Tunisia needs to underpin its democratic transition.

Amine Mati, the head of the IMF delegation in Tunisia, met the Central Bank Governor Chedli Ayari to discuss the details of the credit programme on Thursday.

“The programme will be in accordance with new economic reforms in Tunisia this year and during the three next years,” an central bank official told Reuters after the meeting.

Mati will also meet the prime minister’s adviser in charge of economic reforms.

Tunisia is about to get a loan of 500 million euros ($550 million) from the European Union to support the economy, and former colonial ruler France last month pledged 1 billion euros in aid over five years.

The new IMF programme will follow on from a two-year deal totalling about $1.74 billion that was agreed in 2013 and extended last year by seven months to buy time for Tunisia to put banking and fiscal reforms in place.

Under the programme, Tunisia also agreed to keep its budget deficit under control and make the foreign exchange market more flexible.

 

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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Rwanda’s economic growth to slow to 6.3% this year

18 February 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

KIGALI (Reuters) – Rwanda’s economic growth is likely to slow to 6.3 percent this year from an estimated 7 percent last year, mainly due to smaller expansions in the agriculture, construction and services sectors, the central bank chief said on Thursday.

Governor John Rwangombwa told a news conference the slower rate of expansion was partly due to the effects of El Gino rains.

“Agriculture has a big hand in that slight reduction from 7 percent to 6.3 percent,” he said, putting growth in the sector, one of the main drivers of the economy, at 5.1 percent this year compared with a projected 5.5 percent last year.

Rwangombwa said the service sector was expected to expand 7.1 percent this year after growing 7.3 percent in the first three quarters of last year.

He added the construction sector was also seen slowing compared with last year.

He said inflation was expected to remain within the 4.5 and 5.5 percent range during the year.

Rwanda’s urban inflation rate, a key indicator for the central bank, was unchanged at 4.5 percent in January compared with the previous month.

 

(Reporting by Clement Uwiringiyimana; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

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South32 considering buyout of Anglo American manganese unit

18 February 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

SYDNEY (Reuters) – South32 could be among the first to buy assets placed on the block this week by South Africa’s Anglo American, with the Australian company saying it was interested in its manganese unit.

The two companies share a manganese mining and smelting business located in Australia and South Africa, with Anglo American owning 40 percent of the division.

RBC last year valued South32’s stake in manganese at around $1.8 billion, though that was before the metal halved in price.

“As a JV partner with a deep understanding of their value, we would be a buyer if the price is right,” a South32 spokeswoman said in an emailed statement, confirming a report in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper website.

News of the interest from South32, the diversified minerals group spun out of BHP Billiton last year, comes as Anglo American turns to widespread divestment to shore up a heavily indebted balance sheet.

South32 indicated negotiations had already started to acquire Anglo American’s manganese business.

“We have a good relationship with our joint venture partner and they’ve communicated their intentions,” the statement said.

Manganese can be found in drink cans to improve resistance to corrosion. Ahead of Anglo American unveiling plans this week to cut net debt in half, South32 had been mentioned as a potential buyer of Anglo American’s niobium business.

Anglo American on Feb. 16 detailed a drastic plan to hack and slash its sprawling empire of mining assets, paring it back to diamonds, copper and platinum.

Any acquisition, though, would come at a tough time for manganese producers.

Weak prices for the metal have already led South32 to suspend mining at its Hotazel mining division in South Africa This has removed around 700,000 tonnes of manganese ore production from the global supply chain.

South32 shares were nearly 5 percent higher at A$1.26 in late trading on Thursday, double the gains of the wider market. But the stock has still lost nearly half its value since listing in May.

 

(By James Regan. Reporting by James Regan; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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With new leadership, Ecobank Nigeria expands services

18 February 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Featured

Charles Kie

One of the country’s largest banks targets support to grow small and medium-sized business sector.

One of Nigeria’s largest banks is expanding services for small and medium-sized business enterprises as it welcomes a new top executive. The Ivorian Charles Kie is the new managing director of Ecobank Nigeria, replacing Jibril Aku, whose five-year term ended December 31. Ecobank Nigeria, based in Lagos, has more than $9 billion in assets and operates more than 600 branches, making it one of the largest banks in the country.

New services for small, medium-sized businesses

The bank recently launched a number of initiatives designed to support the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector of the economy.

Calling small and medium-sized businesses the engine of economic growth for the nation, Sunkanmi Olowo, head of SME and Value Chain Banking at Ecobank Nigeria said the bank would increase funding and support to the sector.

Olowo said Ecobank Nigeria was launching SME Club, which will provide preferred business support and tailored products to small and medium-sized businesses.

SME Club will provide capacity development, technical assistance and business, accounting, tax and legal services building to small and medium-sized enterprises as well as information mining, networking and capacity, he said.

The bank is also launched MyMall, an online e-commerce platform on which businesses can market and sell their services and goods.

Olowo said Ecobank will also offer training and funding through a New Venture Initiative, he said.

New managing director named

Charles Kie, the Ecobank Nigeria’s new managing director, joined Ecobank Transnational in 2011 and served as chief operating officer of Ecobank Capital and then became head of Ecobank group’s corporate banking division.

Previously he was chief executive officer of Groupe Banque Atlantique, based in Togo and Ivory Coast with operations in nine West and Central African countries. He also worked for Citibank, serving as CEO of Citigroup West Africa.

A graduate of the Ecole supérieure de commerce d’Abidjan in Ivory Coast, Kie has Master’s degree in Business Administration from the London School of Economics and a Master of Science degree from the University Of Clermont-Ferrand (France). He also attended Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.

Parent organization emerges from scandal

Ecobank Nigeria is a subsidiary of Ecobank Transnational, a pan-African banking group based in Togo with more than 1,250 branches and offices in 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It has $24 billion in assets and 11 million customers.

The parent organization got new leadership last year after two years of scandals that saw the bank accused of poor governance and fraud.

The Nigerian Ade Ayeyemi was named group chief executive in September as the bank was poised to expand its footprint on the continent.

“This organization went through a near-death experience two years ago. And now we’ve recovered, we need to power through,” Ayeyemi said.

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Burundi annual tea revenue jumps by 52%

17 February 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

KIGALI (Reuters) – Burundi’s tea export revenues jumped 52 percent in 2015 from a year earlier, thanks to a fall in output of regional rival Kenya, a tea board official said on Wednesday.

Tea output in Kenya, the world’s leading exporter of black tea, fell by 10 percent last year, mainly because of dry weather conditions in East Africa’s biggest economy.

“The decline of Kenya’s tea production largely contributed to drive up prices and earnings for Burundi’s tea,” Joseph Marc Ndahigeze, the head of exports for the Burundi tea board (OTB), told Reuters.

The average export price per kilogram climbed to $3.09, against $2.17 in 2014, state-run OTB said in a report.

Tea is Burundi’s second-largest earner of hard currency behind coffee and supports 300,000 farmers in a nation of 10 million people.

OTB, which exports 80 percent of its tea through a regional weekly auction held in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa, said tea export revenue totalled $32.4 million last year, up from $21.3 million in 2014, with export volumes rising by 6.6 percent to 10,495 tonnes.

The rise in Burundi tea exports has come despite nine months of political chaos that has resulted in 400-plus deaths, pushed 240,000 people into exile and hampered many elements of the nation’s fragile economy.

 

 

(Reporting by Patrick Nduwimana; Editing by Drazen Jorgic and David Goodman)

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South Africa’s January headline CPI rises to 6.2% year-on-year

17 February 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s headline consumer inflation quickened more than expected to 6.2 percent year-on-year in January, compared with 5.2 percent in December, data from Statistics South Africa showed on Wednesday.

On a month-on-month basis, prices rose 0.8 percent compared with an increase of 0.3 percent in the previous month.

Core inflation, which excludes the prices of food, non-alcoholic beverages, petrol and energy, edged up to 5.6 percent year-on-year in January from 5.2 percent in the previous month, while also rising to 0.7 percent month-on-month.

The consensus for January headline CPI was 5.93 percent, according to a Reuters poll.

 

(Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by James Macharia)

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Kenya replaces Mombasa port management amid smuggling probe

16 February 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya Ports Authority said on Monday it had replaced senior managers at Mombasa port in response to pressure to tackle drug and ivory smuggling at East Africa’s main trade gateway.

Masden Madoka, the port’s chairman, said managing director Gichiri Ndua and five other senior managers had been sent into early retirement and several others were likely to follow.

There are no suggestions any of the six were directly involved in smuggling, though Madoka said investigations into corruption were ongoing.

“There have been complaints levelled against the KPA (Kenyan Ports Authority) and it was time such drastic action was taken,” he told journalists.

Ndua could not be reached for comment, despite several attempts to contact him by telephone.

The Indian Ocean port is a vital artery for East African trade, handling fuel and other imports for landlocked neighbours including Uganda and South Sudan. The region’s main exports, tea and coffee, are also shipped out of Mombasa.

Western diplomats say it is also the main exit point for ivory poached in East Africa and smuggled to Asia, and has become a key entry point of Afghan heroin bound for Europe via East Africa.

Officials of the port and other government agencies there have faced frequent and widespread accusations of colluding with rogue importers and exporters, depriving Kenya of tax revenues.

While there have been no convictions, the port has become a focal point for a campaign by President Uhuru Kenyatta to boost economic growth by improving efficiency and fighting criminal cartels.

Madoka said Catherine Muturi, who was the port’s general manager for finance and administration, has been appointed acting managing director.

In another effort to curb smuggling, Madoka also said all transit cargo coming through Mombasa would be cleared within the port. At present, some containers bound for outside Kenya are cleared at privately run container freight stations located outside the port.

The government shut down two such stations last month.

 

(By Joseph Akwiri. Writing by Drazen Jorgic; editing by John Stonestreet)

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South Africa’s Impala Platinum sees up to 20% fall in H1 profits

15 February 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s Impala Platinum said on Monday it expected half-year profits to fall by as much as 20 percent due to lower rand prices for its main commodity.

Headline earnings per share – a measure of profit which strips off certain one-off items – will be between 50 cents and 59 cents, a decline of between 20 percent and 10 percent.

Impala, the world No. 2 producer of the metal used for emissions-capping catalytic converters in cars, said the rand prices for platinum are down 15 percent compared to a year earlier causing the decline in profits.

Shares in Implats, which have more than halved in value over the last year, fell 0.74 percent to 35 rand by 1500 GMT.

 

(Reporting by Zandi Shabalala; Editing by James Macharia)

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Rail projects for Middle East, North Africa total $350 billion

15 February 2016 Comments (1) Africa, Business, Featured, Middle East

high speed rail saudi arabia

The region is experiencing a boom in development of railways to drive economic growth and benefit the environment. 

High-speed rail travel is on a fast track in the Middle East and Northern Africa. More than $350 billion in rail projects are under way in the region.

The estimate represents major rail projects in 16 countries, according to Terrapinn Middle East, which is organizing the 10th annual Middle East Rail conference in Dubai March 8 and 9.

Rail travel has become increasingly appealing in the region as a greener alternative to auto or air travel.

While the United Arab Emirates recently delayed work on a high-speed rail project, other governments that are facing budget deficits because of the oil glut prioritize rail projects as a way to improve trade and increase tourism to boost their economies.

Saudi Arabia builds high-speed line

One of these countries, Saudi Arabia accounts for about one third of the total spending with projects totaling $118.9 billion.

A major Saudi project is the $55 million Haramain high-speed rail project, which will connect the holy cities of Mecca and Medina with Jeddah, the country’s commercial capital and second largest city. Following delays, it is expected to begin operations in early 2017.

Kingdom wants to boost religious tourism

The Saudis see rail development as key to the nation’s ambitions to attract more tourists, especially to the holy sites.

The Saudi kingdom drew 16 million tourists in 2014 and wants to double that number by 2030, according Fadh Al Rasheed, group CEO of King Abdullah Economic City.

The Saudis also are building a $12 billion four-line commuter rail network in Jeddah as well as a $22 billion six-line network in the capital of Riyadh.

UAE project sees delays, staff reductions

While most projects are moving forward in spite of financial problems brought on by sharp reductions in oil prices, the United Arab Emirates in January suspended the bidding process for the second stage of its $11 billion Etihad Rail project and cut a third of its workforce. A project spokesman said the aim was to streamline operations before moving forward with bids.

Terrapinn said United Arab Emirates planned on spending $27 billion for metro rail, a tram and long-distance freight and passenger rail.

ethiad rail

Gulf States plan integrated network

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have agreed with four fellow states in the Gulf Cooperative Council to build an integrated high-speed rail network linking their countries by 2018 at a total estimated cost of $200 billion. The other partner nations are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.

The goal is to create an efficient regional network of freight and passenger rail lines.

The railway network will yield environmental benefits for the region and create new jobs while reducing dependence on more expensive air or auto travel, according to Feras Shadid, a rail asset management consultant.

According to Terrapinn Bahrain has allocated $12.9 billion for rail; Kuwait, $17 billion, Oman, $16 billion, and Qatar, $46.7 billion.

China will help Iran build a high-speed line

With the lifting of sanctions, Iran is planning to develop a high-speed rail line linking the cities of Tehran, Qom and Isfahan. Terrapinn said Iran plans to spend $24.6 billion on rail projects.

China last month agreed to give Iran financial help with its high-speed rail line as part of an agreement to significantly increase trade to $600 billion in the next 10 years. China also wants to build a high-speed line linking the two countries.

Algeria, Egypt and Morocco plan rail development

Algeria, with a Terrapinn estimate of $34.4 billion, is developing light rail systems in Algiers, Oran and Constantine. While the projects have been delayed because of lost oil revenues, they are currently expected to be fully operational by 2020.

Egypt, with an estimate of $30.9 billion in spending, has projects including $1.5 billion to build a rail line linking 6th of October City to Cairo.

Morocco has an estimated $10 billion in projects, including a high-speed rail line that will connect Tangiers to Casablanca.

Farther south, Nigeria has $75 billion in rail projects, according to Terrapinn. High-speed rail service between Abuja and Kaduna is scheduled to begin operations in March. The line has nine stations.

Terrapinn also listed the following countries and their rail spending: Djibouti and Ethiopia ($4 billion shared), Iraq ($14 billion), Jordan ($3.8 billion), Lebanon ($500 million).

Major rail convention planned in March

Terrapinn released the estimates in advance of Middle East Rail 2016, the largest conference and expo devoted to rail projects in the region.

About 9,000 rail operators, government officials and contractors are expected to attend the March 8-9 event at the Dubai International Exhibition & Convention Centre. The expo will feature 300 exhibitors.

High-speed rails, or “bullet trains,” travel at significantly faster speeds than traditional trains. They can reach speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour. They have been developed in Europe and East Asia.

Meanwhile, the boom in rail construction in the Middle East has caused worker shortages in other parts of the world.

For example, officials in Chennai, India said they have trained rail workers only to see them leave for higher paying jobs in the Middle East during the last two years, causing interruptions and delays.

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Nigeria in talks with oil majors to repay debt, invest in refineries

15 February 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigeria is in talks with oil majors and banks to raise capital for new drilling and to repay up to $4 billion in debt that the state oil firm has accumulated over years of mismanagement, the firm’s head told Reuters.

Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, who is also the minister of state for petroleum, said he wanted to increase output to up to 2.5 million barrels per day by the end of 2016. Currently, the OPEC member pumps 2.3 million bpd.

President Muhammadu Buhari has made reforming the oil sector a priority as a slump in oil prices hammers the economy. The former military ruler has fired the NNPC board and appointed Kachikwu to overhaul a company whose opaque structures have allowed corruption and oil theft to flourish.

Nigeria’s oil and gas output has been relatively stagnant as big offshore projects have been held up by much-delayed government funding and uncertainty over fiscal terms.

Africa’s biggest economy produces oil with foreign and local firms through production-sharing contracts and joint ventures (JVs) but investments have been held up because NNPC has been unable to pay its part: bills have been piling up since 2012.

Kachikwu said debt as of November stood at $3.5-$4 billion, which NNPC wanted to cut through deals such as a $1.2 billion multi-year drilling financing signed with Chevron in September.

“The target is that over 2017, we’ll begin to look at zero,” he said in an interview, referring to debt and the goal of ending the need for JVs to depend on NNPC cash.

NNPC was in talks with oil majors such as Italy’s Eni and oil traders Vitol and Gunvor, seeking partnerships to revamp assets such as refineries after decades of neglect. Cash-strapped for years, it reported a loss of 267.14 billion naira ($1.3 billion) for 2015.

“My ideal would be to bring in third party capital, do a joint investment and management of the refineries and work out a pay-out process over 5 to 6 years basically on lifting of some portion of the finished products,” Kachikwu said.

He added that the government would also advertise concessions for pipelines and depots next month.

 

RAISING FUNDS

NNPC was also looking into revamping joint ventures with local firms to boost productivity but this would depend on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), a project to revamp the sector held up in parliament for years.

Kachikwu said NNPC was in talks with the Senate to speed up the process by splitting the PIB into three parts covering governance, taxation and business items such as oil block licensing.

NNPC would also restructure strategic alliance agreements held by Atlantic Energy to raise funds for oil blocks sold by Royal Dutch Shell.

The controversial deals were signed under the previous oil minister Diezani Alison-Madueke, who was briefly arrested in London last year on suspicion of corruption. [nL5N1223TQ]

Former central bank governor Lamido Sanusi alleged that Atlantic’s deals were one route through which tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues were diverted from state finances.

Kachikwu said NNPC expected to conclude a deal within two months for a new partner to pay up to $1.3 billion to take over the Atlantic agreements. The blocks were originally sold to indigenous oil companies by Shell.

“I’m saying to Atlantic, sorry, you’re out because there’s been a breach,” he said. “Whoever comes in has to give a sign-in fee almost equivalent to what I’ve lost … we’ll have a massive increase in volume out of those fields, we’re going to have 150,000 to 200,000 bpd from the current 40,000 to 50,000 bpd.”

 

(Reporting by Julia Payne; Editing by Ulf Laessing and Ruth Pitchford)

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