TUNIS (Reuters) – Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Tunisia rose 18 percent in the first quarter of 2017 compared with a year earlier, government figures showed on Monday.

The figure for that period, from January to March, was 450 million Tunisian dinars ($177.68 million), the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency said.

The manufacturing industry drew most of the investment flow with 144 million dinar, followed by the services sector with 56 million dinar, it said.

Tunisia, which this month set up a new investment law, seeks to attract foreign investors after years of stagnation due to strikes and fragile security situation since a 2011 revolution.

The new law gives foreign investors more flexibility to transfer funds, including profits, out of the country, and removes tax on profits of major projects for 10 years.

It also establishes a fund for investment which will help finance infrastructure projects and funding to spur investors to launch big projects in marginalized areas of the country.

($1 = 2.5327 Tunisian dinars)

(Reporting By Tarek Amara)

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NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya’s KCB Group, the country’s biggest lender by assets, said it has offered employees voluntary early retirement in a bid to save 2 billion shillings ($19.36 million) each year.

KCB, which also operates in five neighbouring countries, had already said it would cut an unspecified number of jobs, mainly due to technological changes and the capping of commercial rates in Kenya last September.

Kenya has been a global pioneer in technological innovations in finance, launching the M-pesa mobile phone cash transfer system a decade ago and the first mobile phone-based bond last month.

The cost of the proposed buyouts, which are being offered in line with local laws, will take a year and a half to recover, KCB said on Thursday.

Staff have a month to apply, and the group plans to complete the exercise in the middle of June, sources at KCB told Reuters.

KCB said the cuts would help it align its staff with a banking industry that had “been dimmed by legislative and regulatory reforms”. It also said technological changes were now attracting non-traditional firms into the sector.

The government set a commercial interest rate limit of 400 basis points above the central bank rate, which stands at 10 percent. The cap, which also set a minimum deposit rate, has curbed bank earnings and private sector credit expansion.

The government argued lending rates were too high, a position opposed by banks who argued the cap could lead to credit rationing.

($1 = 103.3000 Kenyan shillings)

(Reporting by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Alexander Smith)

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HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s tax agency said on Thursday it had collected $862 million in the first quarter of 2017, exceeding its target by 6 percent, helped by automated operations and improved compliance among businesses.

The southern African country, which fell short of its 2016 revenue goal by 4 percent as its economy suffered from weaker commodity prices and a liquidity crisis, expects to collect $3.7 billion this year.

President Robert Mugabe’s government, which fell out with western donors nearly two decades ago amid accusations of human rights abuses and electoral fraud, does not receive significant direct international aid and relies almost entirely on tax revenues to fund its budget.

Zimbabwe’s economy stagnated last year following a devastating drought while its budget deficit exploded as Mugabe’s administration struggled to pay its workers, which helped fan anti-government protests.

Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) chairperson Willian Bonyongwe said gross revenue collections for the first quarter of 2017 were 10 percent higher than figures for the same period last year.

“This upward trend is a result of a battery of revenue enhancement measures … which include automation, greater enforcement and the fight against corruption,” Bonyongwe said in a quarterly statement.

Value-added tax on local sales, at 22.42 percent, weighed in with the biggest contribution towards the revenue, followed by individual tax at 20.05 percent, ZIMRA said.

Company tax made up 11.2 percent, while mineral royalties, at $16.39 million, exceeded the quarterly target by 21.42 percent on the back of improved output and commodity prices.

The tax agency says it expects better revenue flows this year, following an improved farming season, but has cautioned that an extended bank note shortage Zimbabwe has experienced since the beginning of 2016 will affect economic performance.

Zimbabwe’s government has revised upwards its 1.7 percent economic growth projection for 2017 to 3.7 percent, citing the rebound in agriculture.

(Reporting by Nelson Banya; Editing by Gareth Jones)

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CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s economy will grow by 3.5 percent during the 2016-17 financial year, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday, lowering the 4 percent forecast it made in a report last year.

The IMF last November agreed to provide Egypt with a three-year, $12 billion loan as part of an ambitious economic reform programme that includes levying new taxes and cutting energy subsidies.

“In Egypt, comprehensive reforms are expected to deliver sizable growth dividends, lifting growth from 3.5 percent in 2017 to 4.5 percent in 2018,” the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook on Tuesday, in which it raised its overall global growth forecast. [nL1N1HQ0XS]

The 2017 figure, which refers to the 2016-17 fiscal year ending in June, is lower than what the international lender had expected in a report around the time Egypt accepted the loan. It is also a drop from the 4.3 percent the North African country recorded in 2015-16.

The report did not provide a reason for the downward revision.

Egypt has been hit by soaring inflation since it floated its currency in November, allowing it to roughly halve in value. Urban consumer inflation hit 30.9 percent year-on-year in March, its highest in decades, though month-on-month inflation has slowed. [nL8N1HI29X]

(Reporting by Eric Knecht; editing by Andrew Roche)

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