Features

KINSHASA (Capital Markets in Africa) – The Democratic Republic of Congo plans to issue its first licenses to private insurance companies early next year. The central African nation plans to end more than four decades of state monopoly of an industry the Insurance Regulatory Authority estimates is worth $850 million annually and could grow threefold in the next five years. Congo is the continent’s fourth-most populous nation, with about 84 million people. ARCA, as the authority is…

GUINEA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Societe Miniere de Boke, which mines aluminum raw material bauxite in Guinea, signed agreements with the West African nation to spend $3 billion on a railway, an alumina refinery and the development of new mining areas. The 135-kilometer (84-mile) railway, which will link mining operations to a river terminal, will cost an estimated $1.2 billion and is expected to start operations in 2022, the group said in a statement…

ADDIS ABABA (Capital Markets in Africa) – On a continent where true political reform often seems to be a mirage, Ethiopia is pursuing change at a breathtaking pace. Since taking over as premier in April, Abiy Ahmed has spearheaded a redistribution of power across Africa’s second-most populous nation – and its fastest-growing economy – that’s been under the iron rule of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front for a quarter-century. Vowing a crackdown on the “cancer” of corruption,…

TRIPOLI (Capital Markets in Africa)- It’s probably too soon for the UN to lift the sanctions on the LIA, but it could make a start by letting it invest the proceeds of maturing securities. In a tough environment for asset managers battling with declining stock markets and still ultra-low benchmark bond yields, spare a thought for Libya’s sovereign wealth fund. It also has to contend with militia attacks on its staff, competing claims about who runs…