Finance

KIGALI (Capital Markets in Africa) – Rwandan traders will soon offer products including coffee and handicrafts on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s platform as the East African nation targets the Chinese market. Alibaba signed three agreements with Rwanda on Wednesday that include helping Chinese tourists travel to the nation known for its endangered mountain gorillas. The country that also supplies Starbucks Corp. with some specialty coffee is now looking east to expand its market, according to the…

LUSAKA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Zambia, Africa’s second-largest copper producer, plans to trim its budget-deficit next year even after missing its 2018 target. The fiscal shortfall will be 7.4 percent of gross domestic product this year compared with a previous estimate of 6.1 percent, Finance Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe said Friday in her first budget speech since she was appointed in February. In 2019 the gap will narrow to 6.5 percent, she said. The government will spend…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Spending by South African households contracted the first time since 2016 as an increase in value-added tax and higher fuel prices ate into disposable income. Consumption expenditure by households shrank an annualized 1.3 percent in the second quarter from the previous three months, the first contraction since the first three months of 2016, the Pretoria-based South African Reserve Bank said in its quarterly bulletin, citing figures from the statistics…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – After coming out all guns blazing, Nigeria’s central bank surrendered some ground in its tussle with MTN Group Ltd., pledging that a dispute over the repatriation of $8.1 billion in dividends from the country will soon be resolved. Examiners from the central bank are reviewing documents provided by Johannesburg-based MTN and four banks accused of moving money out of the continent’s biggest oil producer without the regulator’s final authorization, Governor…

CAIRO (Capital Markets in Africa) – Egypt is in talks with Belgium-based Euroclear to settle its domestic debt transactions and will embark on a non-deal bond roadshow through Asia this year, part of a drive to attract more overseas investors and reduce borrowing costs. “We are in continuous talks with Euroclear and we are trying to finalize this issue as soon as possible,” Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said in an interview. “This step is very…