Finance

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) – President Joe Biden and his party notched a huge economic victory late Friday with passage of a bipartisan public works bill. Now he seeks to sell Americans on the merits of $550 billion in new spending even as they face rising prices for fuel, food and housing. The president plans an infrastructure tour over the next several weeks to promote the legislation, including a visit to the Port…

ACCRA (Capital Markets in Africa) – The Economic Community of West African States on Sunday imposed sanctions on Mali’s transitional leaders after they informed the regional bloc they would not be able to hold elections in February to return to democratic rule. The sanctions include travel bans and a freeze on financial assets, on all members of the transitional authority and their families, ECOWAS said in a statement after a summit in Ghana’s capital, Accra….

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – MTN Group Ltd. recently made a takeover approach for Telkom SA SOC in a deal that would’ve combined South Africa’s second and third largest telecommunications operators, according to people familiar with the matter. Telkom has so far shown no interest in a sale, said the people, who asked to remain private as the talks are confidential. It remains unclear whether the larger rival will continue its pursuit, the people…

KAMPALA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is counting on TotalEnergies SE and Cnooc Ltd. to produce oil from its fields in four years, laying the foundation for a new regional fuel hub. The East African nation expects to reach daily output of 230,000 barrels. While that’s much less than what Africa’s biggest producer, Nigeria, pumps, it will make Uganda bigger than some OPEC members on the continent. Output starting by 2025 was…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – The U.K. government is asking world leaders to pledge to halt deforestation by 2030. But Brazil — home to the Amazon rainforest — has yet to sign, raising questions about how effective it can be. The European Union, Indonesia and Democratic Republic of Congo are among those who have already agreed to support the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, according to people familiar with the matter….

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said he was alive to the danger accelerating inflation poses to the cost of servicing the national debt, hinting at fiscal restraint when he unveils his budget and spending review on Wednesday.“The risk of inflation and interest rates is one that we can see already today, and there might be other things that we don’t know about,” Sunak told Times Radio, one…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – We’re all going to a dear green place for the sake of averting climate change. The place is Glasgow, host city for the fast-approaching Conference of the Parties 26. The parties are the countries that have signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which came into force in 1994. This will be the 26th UN climate change conference. And I can promise that it will be both…