The Editorial Team |

What African Central Bankers Will Discuss in the Next 10 Days

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Central banks in sub-Saharan Africa, already missing out on the global monetary-easing parade, just got one more reason to stay on the sidelines. Monetary authorities in key economies in the region will likely decide to hold interest rates when they meet in the next ten days. The devastating Sept. 14 attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure could increase pressure on fuel prices and inflation, adding to worries on global…

Bill Gates Says Big Tech Companies Shouldn’t Be Broken Up

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Bill Gates, who knows a thing or two about antitrust investigations, doesn’t think it’s a good idea to break up the biggest U.S. tech companies as some politicians have suggested. The Microsoft Corp. co-founder and former chief executive officer battled the Justice Department for years in the late 1990s in a bruising antitrust case. At issue was the software giant’s bundling of its Internet Explorer browser to Windows as a way to…

Can Boris Johnson Sell an All-Ireland Backstop to Save Brexit?

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LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Could Boris Johnson break the Brexit impasse by binding Northern Ireland — rather than all of the U.K. as pushed by his predecessor — closely to the European Union until another arrangement was reached? On one hand, Johnson has ruled it out. On the other hand, he’s floated the idea of an all-Irish food zone as a way of avoiding checks along the frontier between Ireland, which is part of the…

Facebook Says Central Banks Have Nothing to Fear From Libra

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LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Facebook Inc. is once again defending Libra — this time against fears that the envisioned cryptocurrency could replace sovereign currencies from the U.S. dollar to the Euro and threaten central banks’ control over money creation. David Marcus, the executive leading the project, posted a series of tweets the same day members of the Libra Association met with regulators convened by a G-7 working group in Switzerland. He argued that creating Libra isn’t…

British Welfare Reform Travels From Idea to Infamy in a Decade

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LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – The agonizing effort to leave the European Union is taking up every breath of U.K. politics, so most people haven’t taken note of the 10th anniversary of one of the root causes of the country’s discontent. In September 2009 a group of researchers, academics, and management consultants hired by a think tank led by a Conservative Party grandee published its recommendations for simplifying Britain’s complex social security system. It…

BRICS Bank’s First Local-Currency Loan Is for South Africa Roads

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – The New Development Bank, the multilateral development institution set up by members of the BRICS group of countries, has extended its first loan in local currency by providing 7 billion rand ($477 million) for South African roads. The 15-year loan to the South African National Roads Agency SOC Ltd. will be guaranteed by the country’s government and still needs the approval of the transport and finance ministers. “The loan…

Nigeria’s Biggest Tomato Plant Idle Again as Farmers Dump Crop

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LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria’s biggest tomato plant is counting on the government’s restriction of food imports to sustain operations after going idle again six months after it resumed operations from an almost three-year shutdown. When Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, decided to set up the plant, it was with the clear goal of supplanting imports of tomato paste mostly from China but that has suffered setbacks. Currently, the 1,200-ton-a-day tomato-processing factory near the…

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