News
Degree of prosperity (Legatum Institute): Over the period 2011-2021, several African countries have improved their world rank, in particular Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Morocco and Senegal. Conversely, South Africa, Angola, Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana and especially Tunisia have plummeted in the world ranking (November 2021).
The Namibian port of Walvis Bay and the South African ports of Cape Town and Durban are respectively 307th, 347th and 349th out of 351 facilities worldwide in terms of efficiency of container handling facilities (source: Engineering News.co.sa; World Bank).
South Africa: Kering is reviewing its supply chains for mohair, ostrich leather and crocodile skin, in order to respond to the criticisms of several animal protection NGOs on the opacity of current supply chains (source: Reuters).
Cameroon (October 2021): The assembly unit for construction machinery of Tractafric Equipement (Optorg) is operational. Location: industrial zone of the autonomous port of Kribi. Production capacity: 250 machines / year. Area: 3 hectares, including 2500m2 of covered premises. Investment: 3Meuros. Markets: CEMAC zone. Products and services: construction engines (backhoes, excavators, etc.), generators, equipment for the lumber yard, machine maintenance, operator training, stock of spare parts, maintenance workshop. Tractafric Equipment benefits from the tax and customs advantages provided for by the 2013 law on the encouragement of private investment. This law allows entrepreneurs with projects to benefit from certain tax and customs exemptions for a period of 5 to 10 years, both in the installation phase and in production.
The IMF has just published “One Planet, Two Worlds, Three Realities - Regional Economic Outlook - October 2021”. Sub-Saharan Africa's growth is expected to stand at 3.7% in 2021, then 3.8% in 2022. The recovery is expected to be slower than in advanced countries, resulting in a widening income gap. The latter should continue in the medium term, partly because of differences in access to vaccines, but also because of the obvious disparities in public support measures. The outlook remains extremely uncertain and may be revised downwards. Rising food prices, coupled with declining incomes, undermine previous progress in poverty reduction, health and food security. In the absence of external financial and technical assistance, the divergent recovery trajectories of sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world could turn into permanent fault lines, jeopardizing decades of progress hard won.
Among the 15 African countries covered by the Observatory, South Africa, Egypt, Mauritius and Morocco have port infrastructures of equivalent quality or even better than that of Asian ports. In contrast, the ports of Angola, Cameroon, Ethiopia (transit through Djibouti) and Nigeria are penalized by major infrastructure quality problems (10/18/21)
Ivory-Coast: Start-up of a cashew processing plant, managed by Dorado Ivory (a subsidiary of the Royal Nuts PTE Ltd group, Singapore). Location: Toumodi (50 kilometers from Yamoussoukro). Capacity: 20,000 tons / year of raw nuts. Area: 12 hectares. 2 storage warehouses (20,000 and 10,000 tonnes). Training center. 5 high power emergency generators. Staff: 300.
Nigeria: The commissioning of the Lekki petrochemical complex (80 kilometers east of Lagos) is behind schedule. This complex includes 19 interconnected projects, including a refinery (capacity: 650,000 barrels per day), a polypropylene unit (capacity: 3.6 Mt / year) and a set of units capable of producing 3 Mt / year of fertilizers. Investment global: $ 19 billion Talks are underway with traders to mobilize a loan. Nigeria's state-owned oil company (NNPC) has agreed to take a 20% stake in the refinery.
According to AidData (a research lab at William and Mary University – USA), Beijing’s lending to low-income and middle-income countries is provided on less generous terms than loans from OECD-DAC (the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and multilateral creditors. A typical loan from China has a 4.2% interest rate and a repayment period of less than 10 years. By comparison, a typical loan from an OECD-DAC lender like Germany, France or Japan carries a 1.1% interest rate and a repayment period of 28 years.
The World Bank announces that it will no longer publish the "Doing Business" report. This decision follows irregularities revealed in the data from the 2018 and 2020 editions of the report. Several members of the World Bank have reportedly been pressured, including from China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, to manipulate the data used in this report.
As of 09/18/2021, the World Container Index (Drewry) stands at $ 10,374 for a standard 40 'container, an increase of 112% since May 2021
(Burkina Faso): Start of construction of the West African Climate Competence Center. Location: Ouagadougou. This center will be a component of the West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL). It will house the WASCAL Research and Data Center and the Higher School of Scientific Data Management of the University of Ouagadougou (Ecofin - 08/23/2021).
Ghana: Inauguration of a tomato processing plant. Investment: $ 16 million. Built by the agrofood group Weddi Africa Ltd. Location: Berekum West district (Bono region). Processing capacity: 40,000 tonnes of fresh tomatoes per year. Supply: plantation of 971ha + network of 2000 independent producers. Equipment: cold room (storage capacity of 500 tonnes of fresh tomatoes), research laboratory, agricultural input sales center. Jobs: 158 direct + around 2000 indirect (Ecofin - 08/23/2021)
Ghana: The International Finance Corporation will finance, with a loan of 12 million USD, the Rider Iron and Steel Ghana Limited, a steel manufacturing plant in the Kumasi region. Estimated production capacity: approximately 240,000 tonnes. Planned commissioning date: 2021. Jobs created: 450 direct and 13,000 indirect. The plant will operate using scrap metal. (DG Trésor - July 2021).
In the 2019 GDP ranking produced by the World Bank, Nigeria retains its rank as Africa's leading economy, at USD 448.12 billion, nearly 26% of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP. It ranks 26th in the world ranking of 192 countries, ahead of South Africa (37th with a GDP of 351.43 billion USD) and Egypt (40th with a GDP of 303.175 billion USD). (DG Trésor - August 2021)
"Africa’s Top 250 Companies in 2021" publié par African Business (Juillet 2021) is available on the home page of the Observatoire website.
(May 2021) - 3D printing can help Nigeria save about N30 trillion (approx. 63 billion euros) expended on spare part importation over the next 10 years, create 100,000 new jobs and increase the country’s GDP by 30% (Webinar “3D Technology: An Emerging Business Revolution”).
(July 2021) - Elsewedy Electric (Egypt) operates a $50 million cables manufacturing plant in Dukem (Ethiopia). Capacity: 4000 tons/year. Products: Wide range of LV cables for the local market, made from 99.9% copper purity.
(July 2021) - Unicorn Group has inaugurated its campus in the Yaba industrial zone (Lagos), now the largest incubator on the African continent. It is the fourth African campus of Unicorn Group after Nairobi, Johannesburg and Accra. Out of 6 African unicorns, 3 are Nigerian (Jumia, Interswitch and Flutterwave).
(July 2021) - ENGIE Energy Access Nigeria will gradually roll out 300 solar mini-grids projects in rural communities in Nigeria. Investment: 40 billion NGN (97.3 million USD) by 2025.
(July 2021) - Fitch downgraded the outlook for Ghana's sovereign rating from “stable” to “negative”.
(July 2021) - The new multipurpose terminal at the port of Onne (State of Rivers), managed by ICT, began with the operation and reception of the first container port ships. This terminal doubles the container handling capacity in eastern Nigeria.
(June 2021) - Cameroon: Commissioning of the first modular sorting plant for waste treatment in sub-Saharan Africa. Location: Dschang (Cameroon). Investment: 800 million FCFA. Designer: Val'Box. Capacity: 30,000 tonnes of waste per year. Val'Box received funding from the Directorate General of the Treasury as part of the FASEP "Innovation verte"..
06/2021: In Morocco, Sykes Seafood (GB) and Klaas Puul (Netherlands) are investing by 2023 in two shrimp processing units. Investment: 40 M €. Locations: Tangier and Fnideq.
DP World has opened a rail service between the container terminal of Maputo (Mozambique) and Harare (Zimbabwe). With this rail service, DP World wishes to develop the transfer of goods from the port of Maputo to South Africa under customs control. Further connections are planned over the next few months, notably to Swaziland and South Africa.
05/31/2021: In Kenya, Athi River processing industrial park is nearing completion. Location: Machakos County. Start-up scheduled for August 2021. Investment: $ 158 million. Area: 200 ha. This park includes 14 tanneries and an effluent treatment unit. Operator: Kenyan Leather Development Council and Export Industry Zone Directorate (EPZA). 50,000 jobs (direct).
The Namibian port of Walvis Bay and the South African ports of Cape Town and Durban are respectively 307th, 347th and 349th out of 351 facilities worldwide in terms of efficiency of container handling facilities (source: Engineering News.co.sa; World Bank).
South Africa: Kering is reviewing its supply chains for mohair, ostrich leather and crocodile skin, in order to respond to the criticisms of several animal protection NGOs on the opacity of current supply chains (source: Reuters).
Cameroon (October 2021): The assembly unit for construction machinery of Tractafric Equipement (Optorg) is operational. Location: industrial zone of the autonomous port of Kribi. Production capacity: 250 machines / year. Area: 3 hectares, including 2500m2 of covered premises. Investment: 3Meuros. Markets: CEMAC zone. Products and services: construction engines (backhoes, excavators, etc.), generators, equipment for the lumber yard, machine maintenance, operator training, stock of spare parts, maintenance workshop. Tractafric Equipment benefits from the tax and customs advantages provided for by the 2013 law on the encouragement of private investment. This law allows entrepreneurs with projects to benefit from certain tax and customs exemptions for a period of 5 to 10 years, both in the installation phase and in production.
The IMF has just published “One Planet, Two Worlds, Three Realities - Regional Economic Outlook - October 2021”. Sub-Saharan Africa's growth is expected to stand at 3.7% in 2021, then 3.8% in 2022. The recovery is expected to be slower than in advanced countries, resulting in a widening income gap. The latter should continue in the medium term, partly because of differences in access to vaccines, but also because of the obvious disparities in public support measures. The outlook remains extremely uncertain and may be revised downwards. Rising food prices, coupled with declining incomes, undermine previous progress in poverty reduction, health and food security. In the absence of external financial and technical assistance, the divergent recovery trajectories of sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world could turn into permanent fault lines, jeopardizing decades of progress hard won.
Among the 15 African countries covered by the Observatory, South Africa, Egypt, Mauritius and Morocco have port infrastructures of equivalent quality or even better than that of Asian ports. In contrast, the ports of Angola, Cameroon, Ethiopia (transit through Djibouti) and Nigeria are penalized by major infrastructure quality problems (10/18/21)
Ivory-Coast: Start-up of a cashew processing plant, managed by Dorado Ivory (a subsidiary of the Royal Nuts PTE Ltd group, Singapore). Location: Toumodi (50 kilometers from Yamoussoukro). Capacity: 20,000 tons / year of raw nuts. Area: 12 hectares. 2 storage warehouses (20,000 and 10,000 tonnes). Training center. 5 high power emergency generators. Staff: 300.
Nigeria: The commissioning of the Lekki petrochemical complex (80 kilometers east of Lagos) is behind schedule. This complex includes 19 interconnected projects, including a refinery (capacity: 650,000 barrels per day), a polypropylene unit (capacity: 3.6 Mt / year) and a set of units capable of producing 3 Mt / year of fertilizers. Investment global: $ 19 billion Talks are underway with traders to mobilize a loan. Nigeria's state-owned oil company (NNPC) has agreed to take a 20% stake in the refinery.
According to AidData (a research lab at William and Mary University – USA), Beijing’s lending to low-income and middle-income countries is provided on less generous terms than loans from OECD-DAC (the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and multilateral creditors. A typical loan from China has a 4.2% interest rate and a repayment period of less than 10 years. By comparison, a typical loan from an OECD-DAC lender like Germany, France or Japan carries a 1.1% interest rate and a repayment period of 28 years.
The World Bank announces that it will no longer publish the "Doing Business" report. This decision follows irregularities revealed in the data from the 2018 and 2020 editions of the report. Several members of the World Bank have reportedly been pressured, including from China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, to manipulate the data used in this report.
As of 09/18/2021, the World Container Index (Drewry) stands at $ 10,374 for a standard 40 'container, an increase of 112% since May 2021
(Burkina Faso): Start of construction of the West African Climate Competence Center. Location: Ouagadougou. This center will be a component of the West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL). It will house the WASCAL Research and Data Center and the Higher School of Scientific Data Management of the University of Ouagadougou (Ecofin - 08/23/2021).
Ghana: Inauguration of a tomato processing plant. Investment: $ 16 million. Built by the agrofood group Weddi Africa Ltd. Location: Berekum West district (Bono region). Processing capacity: 40,000 tonnes of fresh tomatoes per year. Supply: plantation of 971ha + network of 2000 independent producers. Equipment: cold room (storage capacity of 500 tonnes of fresh tomatoes), research laboratory, agricultural input sales center. Jobs: 158 direct + around 2000 indirect (Ecofin - 08/23/2021)
Ghana: The International Finance Corporation will finance, with a loan of 12 million USD, the Rider Iron and Steel Ghana Limited, a steel manufacturing plant in the Kumasi region. Estimated production capacity: approximately 240,000 tonnes. Planned commissioning date: 2021. Jobs created: 450 direct and 13,000 indirect. The plant will operate using scrap metal. (DG Trésor - July 2021).
In the 2019 GDP ranking produced by the World Bank, Nigeria retains its rank as Africa's leading economy, at USD 448.12 billion, nearly 26% of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP. It ranks 26th in the world ranking of 192 countries, ahead of South Africa (37th with a GDP of 351.43 billion USD) and Egypt (40th with a GDP of 303.175 billion USD). (DG Trésor - August 2021)
"Africa’s Top 250 Companies in 2021" publié par African Business (Juillet 2021) is available on the home page of the Observatoire website.
(May 2021) - 3D printing can help Nigeria save about N30 trillion (approx. 63 billion euros) expended on spare part importation over the next 10 years, create 100,000 new jobs and increase the country’s GDP by 30% (Webinar “3D Technology: An Emerging Business Revolution”).
(July 2021) - Elsewedy Electric (Egypt) operates a $50 million cables manufacturing plant in Dukem (Ethiopia). Capacity: 4000 tons/year. Products: Wide range of LV cables for the local market, made from 99.9% copper purity.
(July 2021) - Unicorn Group has inaugurated its campus in the Yaba industrial zone (Lagos), now the largest incubator on the African continent. It is the fourth African campus of Unicorn Group after Nairobi, Johannesburg and Accra. Out of 6 African unicorns, 3 are Nigerian (Jumia, Interswitch and Flutterwave).
(July 2021) - ENGIE Energy Access Nigeria will gradually roll out 300 solar mini-grids projects in rural communities in Nigeria. Investment: 40 billion NGN (97.3 million USD) by 2025.
(July 2021) - Fitch downgraded the outlook for Ghana's sovereign rating from “stable” to “negative”.
(July 2021) - The new multipurpose terminal at the port of Onne (State of Rivers), managed by ICT, began with the operation and reception of the first container port ships. This terminal doubles the container handling capacity in eastern Nigeria.
(June 2021) - Cameroon: Commissioning of the first modular sorting plant for waste treatment in sub-Saharan Africa. Location: Dschang (Cameroon). Investment: 800 million FCFA. Designer: Val'Box. Capacity: 30,000 tonnes of waste per year. Val'Box received funding from the Directorate General of the Treasury as part of the FASEP "Innovation verte"..
06/2021: In Morocco, Sykes Seafood (GB) and Klaas Puul (Netherlands) are investing by 2023 in two shrimp processing units. Investment: 40 M €. Locations: Tangier and Fnideq.
DP World has opened a rail service between the container terminal of Maputo (Mozambique) and Harare (Zimbabwe). With this rail service, DP World wishes to develop the transfer of goods from the port of Maputo to South Africa under customs control. Further connections are planned over the next few months, notably to Swaziland and South Africa.
05/31/2021: In Kenya, Athi River processing industrial park is nearing completion. Location: Machakos County. Start-up scheduled for August 2021. Investment: $ 158 million. Area: 200 ha. This park includes 14 tanneries and an effluent treatment unit. Operator: Kenyan Leather Development Council and Export Industry Zone Directorate (EPZA). 50,000 jobs (direct).
The “Letter” of the Observatoire – n°28 – Novembre/December 2021
“Financing Deep Tech” – By Anastasia Nedayvoda, Fannie Delavelle, Hoi Ying So, Lana Graf, Louise Taupin – Publication IFC / BpiFrance – Special Note 1 – October 2021. How to optimize the financing of “Deep Tech” in the context of emerging countries ?
“Complexity of arbitrations in the fight against deforestation, desertification and global warming in Africa” (“Point of view” – Observatoire Europe-Afrique 2030 – 29th January 2021)
“The manufacturing sector is a key driver of African economic growth” (Observatoire Europe-Afrique 2030 -Case study no.16 – 10th May 2021)
We would be delighted to involve you in the activities of the Observatory……
“Africa’s Top 250 Companies in 2021” (African Business – July 2021)
As of 09/18/2021, the World Container Index (Drewry) stands at $ 10,374 for a standard 40 ‘container, an increase of 112% since May 2021 !
(June 2021) “China and Western Aid Norms in the Belt and Road: Normative Clash or Convergence? A Case Study on Ethiopia” – Mario Esteban & Iliana Olivié – 30th June 2021 – Journal of Contemporary China.
“Laying the Tracks: The Political Economy of Railway Development in Ethiopia’s Railway Sector and Implications for Technology Transfer”. (Working Paper No. 2021/43 – Yunnan Chen. 2021. – China Africa Research Initiative, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC.)
« Proposed AfCFTA investment protocol should be simplified to attract FDI » – The Guardian (Nigeria) – 08th July 2021
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